I think this might be a case of two-way causation, though. ~80 characters is a good, readable target, but that's not what we have. For a long time, we've had

I think this might be a case of two-way causation, though. ~80 characters is a good, readable target, but that's not what we have. For a long time, we've had a militant standardization on <81 characters, even in cases where the results are obviously worse than a long line. I imagine that all of us have read or written code containing a line break that blatantly decreased clarity. So the question remains: why 80? 80-ish, sure, but why such a fixed standard? I don't know enough history to say if that's down to Hollerith cards, or the consequences of auto-formatters, or something else, but there's a more definite question than "what's a good width" here.