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I stick to 80 columns, as with it I can better use my screen space. Even on modern wide screens. Even if some lines are long, a lot of lines are short. So the end-of-line side of a text editor is less densely used than the start of line side. This may not show too much with 80 columns line, but with longer lines one can notice that the end-of-line space is mostly blank, with low information density. So instead of using long lines, I'm using 80 columns lines but with several (3 in practice) text panes in parallel. Basically, my work set-up is 3 columns of text panes, with 80 columns of characters each. That allows working on a module body with its header still visible, and the header of another used module shown too. Or to see two different parts of the same file easily (head with declaration, bottom with code). In other words, it's easy to find productive use for 3 parallel text panes. And each one is "information dense". I'd like to have a little more than 80 columns. 100 would be a good number (higher waste space on the EOL side). But with this I can't fit 3 parallel panes on some screen. So I stick with 80 characters, which is OK too. 80 characters can be annoying when manually formatting code, but when using an automatic formatter (clang-format, yapf, black...) it's not such a big deal. Anyway, there's a big subjective part in this so just use what's fine by you (and your team). Still, the information density part is an objective thing. So if you can use 3 parallel text panes with your editor, I suggest you try it. That may make you stick to 80 chars too, and not only for historical reasons ;) |