Thing is the code will also become less readable for many people if your line is longer than 79 chars. My terminals have a fixed width so that they fit perfectly side by side on my multiple monitors. Using random higher numbers just means that I have to use random window sizes and what not.

Yeah, I could have 300 char wide terms, or 600 if I really wanted to. There was a reason for 79. There isn't for 99.

Edit: Glad to see that section might get an update http://bugs.python.org/issue18472#msg194086

Edit2: Gudio van Rossum proposes a patch https://codereview.appspot.com/12269044/diff/1/pep-0008.txt

Unable to edit this any more, but the patch has been applied http://bugs.python.org/issue18472#msg194144

Thanks for pointing that out. Also, the second link, being a perfectly clear and readable side-by-side diff is exactly the reason why 79 chars is important.