from Hacker News

Why code lines still should not exceed 79 characters

by mariambarouma on 1/23/23, 1:48 PM with 4 comments

• by zenosmosis on 1/23/23, 2:36 PM

  I do a soft limit of 80, typically only ever exceeded by a comment w/ a link in it that might bust the cap.

  Despite using a 4K display, it is nice to be able to put individual code windows side by side, multiple times, and be able to read it all w/o horizontal scrolling.

  I also feel that a lot of code reaching past 80 characters could be refactored.

• by sylware on 1/23/23, 2:00 PM

  Kind of true, but 79 is really damn short after a few decades of coding. I did put myself a "soft" limit up to 100 chars.

  I like powers of two and 128 felt really too much and 64 was really too short.