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Discussion on: Does Coding with a Column Width of 80 Make Sense in 2024?

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mnayeem profile image
Nayeem Rahman • Edited

Some say it's to force us from having too many indentation layers and encourage refactoring when appropriate.

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anpos231 profile image
anpos231

True that! If you constantly find yourself writing lines longer than 80 characters then you should probably rethink what you're doing. I bet your code is a mess!

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mnayeem profile image
Nayeem Rahman • Edited

Well, not necessarily.

Long lines that are a result of long symbol names and a boilerplate-ridden language (note the author's Java background) can easily exceed that limit without actually becoming too complex.

I assume that's why, for example, Google enforces a bigger column limit for Java than the likes of JavaScript in its style guides.

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anpos231 profile image
anpos231 • Edited

I guess there is some truth to that, C code (especially object oriented C code) can end up with symbols that will easily take half of your 80 character limit (e.g. g_dbus_object_manager_client_new_for_bus_finish).

In such cases the GNU coding standards come in handy.