What you and Mr. Torvalds forget is that there is a reason why newspapers are written in relatively small columns. Even scientific papers are often printed in two column mode. Typesetting has been done since a few 100 years and has for the most time been an analog technique, so it mostly wasn't limited by available resolution. The point is that humans aren't good at reading text when the line length exceeds roughly 80 characters because when you jump from the far right to the far left of the text, it gets hard to correctly identify where the next line starts. A value of 60 is ideal for non-indented text. Thus considering indentation that is not too deep, say (usually) not exceeding 5 levels a 4 spaces makes 20 chars, which means max. line length is ideal at 80 and should not exceed 100 (or 90 with 2 spaces for indentation).
I can view files in fullscreen mode if forced to do so by the author of the code but I hate it. This has nothing to do with being old-school.
This is a fair objection. Absurdly long lines are uncomfortable. In defense, we have: - Syntax highlighting. - Blank lines. - Indentation. - Ragged right edge. - Infinite canvas. This makes lines multiform, so losing the line seems less likely. Further, code is not read like prose — you skim much more, the zig-zag pattern of the usual reading is gone. It seems to me that all this together gives enough freedom that shortening identifiers is not a necessity anymore. I am not aware of any research that substantiates this opinion though.
When I tile my terminal windows on my display, I can have 6 terminals visible at one time, and that's because I have them three wide. And I could still fit 80% of a fourth one side-by-side.
Using a laptop with max. 15 inch display? How old are you? People over 50 years or so usually have trouble reading such small print, no matter how great the resolution. So (apart from the arguments above) screen size often limits how much text can be displayed in a readable fashion.
Linus Torvalds is exactly 50. In any case, this is all adjustable. I zoom in when my eyes are tired.