I think both practices are pathological. The GP is restricting all variable names to an arbitrary length that will likely obscure meaning. The parent is arbitrarily determining line length based on whichever variable is longer; he may also be mixing in the GP's arbitrary var length rule in order to get a visually pleasing line in the local context.

Prose is obviously different, but it's probably worth considering that the only consideration for the length of a paragraph is the rules of paragraph writing, and not at all the physical length of words and sentences.

And then there's refactoring and renaming, and what that does to your artfully placed characters.

Figure out your placement and spacing rules (or better, use a canned set of rules), use them, and think about other things.