has anyone actually tried the task? it's trivial. i can understand how people get estimates wrong for complex problems, but did this guy + kent beck, pair programming, really need more than 30 minutes? do average software engineers need 30-45 minutes?
the message is fine - i don't have a problem with that at all - but the numbers / facts / anecdotes seem way off base to me.
My guess is that by "the appropriate break point for a line" the author means the break point that makes the result look the best, not just chopping at 13 characters. In order to match what a human would be able to do easily, you'd need to implement something like what tex does (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_wrap#Minimum_raggedness).
the message is fine - i don't have a problem with that at all - but the numbers / facts / anecdotes seem way off base to me.