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We use 120 which seems to work fine even on small screens of about 11 inches.
120 on an 11 inch screen might be highly eyesight-dependent, especially if there is anything else on the screen at the same time. Not everyone worth hiring in the industry has optimal vision.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
120 on an 11 inch screen might be highly eyesight-dependent, especially if there is anything else on the screen at the same time. Not everyone worth hiring in the industry has optimal vision.
If someone has problems seeing small text, why are they using a such a small screen?
Anyway, one doesn't have to go to that extent to make the point: as per the sibling reply from d_, even on a 17 inch monitor one can have issues with 120-character lines if viewing two files side by side (or 50% browser 50% editor).
Readability. It's difficult enough to read through long lines of normal text on a badly formatted website.
Naming. I could go on about this one. Namespacing was created for a reason, don't write any long names. This most often will make your code considerably shorter.
Formatting. If you have short names and you're still ending up will the long lines, you need to understand how to format your code properly.
80 wasn't chosen, or kept so long, arbitrarily. To overcome the issues with both readability and ability to support side-by-side diffs or multiple files on smaller monitors or for those with poorer eyesight, there'd have to be a supportable positive reason to go higher. So far all I've seen is personal preference and occasionally support of bad habits (e.g. "trying to do too much in a single line" as another commenter put it). I just don't find that very convincing.
You burn some vertical room -- all the more apparent with today's widescreen trend. But when you're trying to keep the strain from driving you crazy when reading a bunch of adjacent wide lines, it can help.
Also, other visual differentiators. Remember the old, wide band-printer reports, done on paper that varied background color every 5 lines or similar?
Did you ever wonder why magazines and newspapers use multiple columns? Because it's easier to read. When lines get too wide, it becomes harder to scan from the end of one line to the beginning of the next. There's solid science behind that, based on both physiology and observation of effects. For text, the recommendation is generally as low as 50 characters or as high as 75. Yes, reading code is a bit different, but…
Did you ever wonder why magazines and newspapers use multiple columns? Because it's easier to read. When lines get too wide, it becomes harder to scan from the end of one line to the beginning of the next. There's solid science behind that, based on both physiology and observation of effects. For text, the recommendation is generally as low as 50 characters or as high as 75. Yes, reading code is a bit different, but…
That argument falls apart when you consider indentation. Python code gets ugly fast when you’re just a few levels in.
I think there is a solid argument for not consuming the entire column count of a screen,not sure if that's 80 though.