Is it bad that I don't follow PEP 8 and cut my lines at 79 characters?

Question

I think every Python code has seen PEP 8. The part that sticks out to me is:

Limit all lines to a maximum of 79 characters.

I'm sitting here on a widescreen monitor and coding right across the screen. I'm not coding in a terminal and don't plan on coding in a terminal. I therefor have no problems with character-line limits.

How many people actually follow this limit? Do you still follow it if you're not coding in a 80 character limit terminal? Is it bad that I don't follow it?

I hate how this restriction is apart of 'the style guide' for Python >.<

Answer 1

No Way.

✔ My Arguments:

• Anything beyond 80 chars is part of less important logic. (If needed people can scroll right)
• Enforcing this rule makes those unimportant code come in front of my eyes to clutter
• One has to scroll vertically for huge distances all the time than horizontal scrolling occasionally
• Most modern editors have soft-wrap feature that automates this for any choice of length limit (not just 80)
• Soft-wrap in modern editors is a keystroke-away, it means is one could get best of both the worlds if lines were left as they are.

✔ Linus Torvalds' Arguments:

• grep or 'find in files' will fail strings are severed at unintended location.

• Vertical limit(VT100 terminal) is more painful than 80 char horizontal limit

✔ The verdict:

It's like try-
ing to read
a news arti-
cle written
like this.