[mrottenkolber]

I found 72 character wide lines to be optimal (writing CL). Note that I also apply the rule of choosing long descriptive symbol names. E.g. MAKE-RESOURCE-RESPONDER etc...

When I have trouble keeping the lines short I consider: 1) Is there a better way to write this? 2) Is this function too big?

There are cases where lines have to be longer, but not in Lisp. Inability to write short lines is a symptom of bad syntax designs like e.g. C et al.

EDIT: I have been writing JS the last months and keeping lines short is especially hard in JS, because of its abomination of a syntax. UNIX style backslash escaped line breaks don't help either.