Code Complete, 2nd Edition

Laying Out Individual Statements

This section explains many ways to improve individual statements in a program.

Statement Length

A common and somewhat outdated rule is to limit statement line length to 80 characters. Here are the reasons:

Cross-Reference

For details on documenting individual statements, see "Commenting Individual Lines" in Commenting Techniques.

• Lines longer than 80 characters are hard to read.

• The 80-character limitation discourages deep nesting.

• Lines longer than 80 characters often won't fit on 8.5″ x 11″ paper, especially when code is printed "2 up" (2 pages of code to each physical printout page).

With larger screens, narrow typefaces, and landscape mode, the 80-character limit appears increasingly arbitrary. A single 90-character-long ...