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Re: lynx-dev Spacing cleanups and nits
From: |
David Combs |
Subject: |
Re: lynx-dev Spacing cleanups and nits |
Date: |
Thu, 10 Dec 1998 10:17:49 -0800 (PST) |
> From address@hidden Wed Dec 9 19:41:30 1998
> Date: Wed, 9 Dec 1998 19:38:11 -0800 (PST)
> From: Doug Kaufman <address@hidden>
>
> On Sat, 5 Dec 1998, brian j. pardy wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Dec 05, 1998, Webmaster Jim wrote:
> > > On Sat, Dec 05, 1998 at 01:38:23AM -0800, brian j. pardy wrote:
> > > > Finding myself overcome by insomnia, I decided to sit down and do
> > > > something I had been meaning to for a while, and fix some of my spacing
> > > > errors -- I never remember to put two spaces after the end of a
> > > > sentence.
> > ...
> > > FWIW, the "par" program that I use to format email into ~72 column text
> > > puts one space a period.
> >
> > My *brain* puts one space after each period, and it's proving to be a
> > really difficult habit to break.
>
> There is really no reason except for aesthetics to put two spaces
> after a period. When you consider that documentation will be changing
> in the future and that programs can not generally tell which "." is
> the end of a sentence (where you may want 2 spaces), which is a "." in
> a filename (no spaces wanted), and which is an abbreviation (one space
> wanted), I think it would be best to use one space uniformly or leave
> the spacing variable (what harm, really ?).
> Doug
>
The reason to place TWO spaces after a sentence-ending-char (period,
bang, question-mark, etc) is that many EDITORS -- emacs for sure, maybe
also vi, not sure there) use that as a way of knowing WHERE a sentence
ENDS, so their commands "go fwd one sentence" can work.
Likewise, SOME text-formatters and typesetting systems ALSO rely on
the same rule. The one I use, "Scribe" (originally from CMU) works
like that, and I bet LATEX does too.
Also, two spaces is EASIER TO READ, when your eyes are scanning
fast, in the source-text, eg when fixing or adding to the doc.
Without the two-space rule, how is a program to tell whether, say,
a period is part of an abbreviation, "Lets go to D.C. today.",
or the end of the sentence? Seems like the EASIEST and SIMPLEST
way to inform a program of what we intend.
Just my two bits. Am sure no one will agree. Oh, well...
David
Re: lynx-dev Spacing cleanups and nits, David Combs, 1998/12/11