Jayne80 character column limits in code are a legacy from 80 column text displays which are a legacy of IBM's 80 column punch cards which are a legacy of Roman chariots which had two side-by-side 40 column horses
ok maybe that last bit is a bit silly but it's no sillier than using a nearly 100 year old punch card standard on today's wide screen monitors
Torbjörn Andersson@dotjayne Back in the 90s, I was told a cautionary tale that went something like this, though I've forgotten the specifics:
A mining company had three mines that they had been operating for years. A decision was made to close down one of them, leaving the panicked programmers to figure out which of the hard-coded 3s in their code referred to the number of mines.
Moral: If a whopping big hole in the ground can just go away overnight, the width of a monitor can change too. Define your constants.