Despite increases in screen size and resolution, many sources still suggest that code be limited to 80 characters per line. I realize than there are many different opinions on this subject, but I wonder whether there are any standards bodies or influential firms that use other limits (120 characters is a common alternative). For example, are any standards bodies considering “enlarging” the suggested limit? Are there large scale software projects (e.g. at NASA or ESA) that use larger limits?
Note: This is not yet another question about what individuals do, or
about related opinions, though I’d welcome such information as
comments. This is a specific question about whether there is any indication that standard practice or recommendations (in the form of
specific examples) is likely to change soon.
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The Android style guide says
Limit Line Length
Each line of text in your code should be at most 100 characters long.
There has been lots of discussion about this rule and the decision remains that 100 characters is the maximum.
Exception: if a comment line contains an example command or a literal URL longer than 100 characters, that line may be longer than 100 characters for ease of cut and paste.
Exception: import lines can go over the limit because humans rarely see them. This also simplifies tool writing.
Chromium also uses these style guidelines, and I believe Guava uses something similar. All of these are derived at some point from Google’s internal style guide which allows 100 columns. For example, the eclipse rule set from code.google.com/p/google-styleguide includes:
<setting id="org.eclipse.jdt.core.formatter.lineSplit" value="100"/>
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