Steven D'Aprano wrote:
Why 78? Because it's one less than 79, as mandated by PEP 8, and two less than 80, the hoary old standard.
There's another possible reason for the number 78, although hopefully it doesn't still apply today. There's an application I work with that stores free text in database records of 78 chars each. I suspect it's because early versions go back to the MS-DOS era, when it was common to make windows out of box-drawing characters. 80 columns minus two border chars equals 78! -- Greg -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
