Any particular fixed width is inherently stupid in some way. 78? 80? 132? 255? All crap. Still, having some fixed width is inherently useful. Encourages readability. Permits stodgy old guys like me to print and annotate code for reviews/debugging. And it encourages making people think when going from column N to column N+1 that maybe there's a better way to restructure the logic to make it more expressive.<p>That said, 80's been with us for awhile. Your question is like asking if it would make sense to increase automobile widths. We inherited those. And, from a more recent generation, we inherited 80 columns. Stick with it.
I wish that a mainstream language would come about that uses a proper encoded AST as "source code", thus making the point moot, as people could display format as they wish. unfortunately, this has not come about thus far.<p>However, it's still (almost) a moot point to me. I almost never code in 80 characters (generally closer to 130ish. Fits two windows nicely side-by-side on my screen.), but if something requires it I have my IDE set up to reformat it when I am done.
I stick to 132 character lines and display two files next to each other at the same time. If I stuck to 80 character lines, I could have three files on screen at the same time.<p>There's a limit to how wide code can be while remaining readable, even though it can be wider than prose: I struggle to read prose that word wraps at 132 columns, and I expect I'd struggle to read code that used 200 columns.
I do. Others don't care. Others act like they would rather die than agree to any other style. (tell them you're indenting with 5 space long tabs and watch them twitch)<p>It's really about the personal preferences and about what the project advertises as the agreed coding style. Ideally I'd like to see editors and the whole toolchain that accept and work on some encoded ast rather than text finally, so that everyone can see the text as they prefer. Until then we do need to agree on some standards in our own environment.<p>If you wanted an answer for stats: I program on full screen terminal, so between 120 and unlimited is my preference.
I would say that wide screens should typically be for multiple windows, not a single wide window. Get out of the habit of reflexively maximising everything that we picked up while using 4:3 CRTs.
I've got two guides - one at 80 and one at 120. Code can sometimes get out to 120, but I always keep comments to 80. It makes the comments easier to read, but it also allows me to use more screen space for code if necessary.
It's not about the screen or the computer; it's about the primate sitting in front of it. Long lines are unreadable. That's why newspapers have multiple columns.