[Python-ideas] 80 character line width vs. something wider

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Aaron Rubin writes:

 > 7) Python is designed to be written more like English than other programming
 > languages.  English is written horizontally, not vertically.  In furtherance
 > to an attempt to make "readability" an objective argument, here is a
 > scientific study which finds that greater character width lines improve
 > readability:

The reporting of the statistical analysis borders on deceptive, and
the sample is very small.  The procedure is described in insufficient
detail, as well.  I would not rely on this study (and in fact the
study itself reports that other studies have come up with results
preferring "medium" lengths of 55-60).

In general, I think your arguments mostly come down to "the line
length limitation makes it noticably harder to write code quickly"
plus a little bit of "longer line lengths are maybe a little faster to
read".  But I think that's the wrong place to put the emphasis.  It's
much more important to make the code easy to read and understand.  The
study you cite reports that 55% of the subjects considered the 95 cpl
format the most uncomfortable.  I think that's a good reason to be
wary of increasing line length.