Andrej Mitrovic wrote:
80 columns wasn't determined by some scientific method to be a good size for code, it's a product of limitations of the older generation hardware.
80 columns came from how many characters would fit on a standard size 8.5*11 sheet of paper. Even punch cards followed this precedent.
That paper size has stood the test of time as being a comfortable size for reading. Reading longer lines is fatiguing, as when one's eyes "carriage return" they tend to go awry.
You can see this yourself if you resize and reflow a text web site to be significantly wider than 80 columns. It gets harder to read.
