[pizza234]

When I get tired of actually arguing for 80 columns, I just say that using 80 columns is actually too many columns, as it excludes developers who program on systems with 40 columns; it's no chance that the most sold home computer in history had 40 columns.

Without arguing about 80 columns being optimal or not, this is the author's habit:

> I frequently have two or more editor windows next to each other, sometimes also with one or two extra terminal/debugger windows next to those. To make this feasible and still have the code readable, it needs to fit “wrapless” in those windows.

It's not clear whether the terminals are horizontally next to each other, however one must consider that in his calculations, there is the presupposition of extra programs (other than the editor) horizonally stacked on the same screen. The sky is the limit, with such presupposition.

I still contend that 40 columns should be the maximum, as in addition to the editor, any sane, productive developer should keep one or two terminals, the team chat, and the music player stacked horizontally on the same screen. /s

[devenblake]

I unironically prefer 40col but I'm afraid nobody shares my sentiment... it doesn't help that I also have a preference for 8-space tabs

[rbanffy]

> it's no chance that the most sold home computer in history had 40 columns.

It really depends on the language, but 40-columns is actually not bad if you are programming for an 8-bit computer in BASIC.

One should avoid having overly long, multi-statement lines anyway.