Sentence Spacing — 1 Space or 2? 814
An anonymous reader noted an epic battle is waging, the likes of which has not been seen since we all agreed that tab indenting for code was properly two spaces. He writes "Do you hit the space bar two times between sentences, or only one? I admit, I'm from the typewriter age that hits it twice, but the article has pretty much convinced me to change. My final concern: how will my word processor know the difference between an abbr. and the end of a sentence (so it can stretch the sentence for me)? I don't use a capital letter for certain technical words (even when they start a sentence), making it both harder to programmatically detect a new sentence and more important to do so. What does the Slashdot community think?"
False assumption (Score:5, Insightful)
we all agreed that tab indenting for code was properly two spaces
Say what?!?? Who made that decision? In the java world, 4 spaces is pretty standard.
"tab indenting for code was properly two spaces" (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just problem for automatic parsers (Score:4, Insightful)
What battle!!!! (Score:1, Insightful)
A epic battle? Where! There is only a link to wikipedia FFS!! And even then its still more history orientated! Nor has it anything to do with programming!
This isnt news, this is bollocks!
Word processor? (Score:5, Insightful)
Use LaTeX. (Score:5, Insightful)
Use LaTeX (especially if you're typing technical things), then you won't have to worry about it. Type what you mean, and let the typesetter and styles handle the details.
(I should note that if have a period followed by space that isn't a new sentence or a or a period following a capital letter that is, in which case you'll need to mark up the period with \ or @ to let it know, but these are generally fringe cases.)
Re:Monospaced or proportional (Score:2, Insightful)
Two spaces are appropriate for typewriters and similar monospaced fonts (Courier, Monaco, Andale Mono, Consolas, Vera, Deja Vu mono)
One space for proportional fonts (Times, Helvetica, almost everything.)
That seems backwards to me. One space in a proportional font should be much smaller than one in a monospaced font. You'll get a HUGE difference between those two your way. Unless that is your intent, for some unknown reason.
Depends on format (Score:4, Insightful)
Myself, I'm a two-space typer. My finger know a sentence-ending period is followed by two spaces and they just do it. However, in certain formats, such as HTML, white space is ignored anyway and then formatted by the format-processor (obviously a web browser in the case of HTML).
While I'm a two-spacer, the medium in which we type is largely making this a moot point.
-geis
TAB is the one true indentation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What does slashdot say? (Score:1, Insightful)
Is it readable, and is it consistent?
If so, then it's good.
Re:False assumption (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What does slashdot say? (Score:5, Insightful)
Two spaces makes it easier to parse with a regexp. Any period followed by two spaces is the end of a sentence. If you use one space, you might pick up sentence fragments with titles (Mr. Mrs., etc.)
Of course, the question is really moot. LaTeX ignores whitespace and just does what it thinks is right. I am willing to trust LaTeX.
Re:Two spaces, bitches. (Score:3, Insightful)
Because some of us are old and spent many years in a monospace font, and liked it.
Seriously, I've been doing two spaces after a full-stop for so long that I'd never be able to stop doing it (I've been typing since the early/mid 80's). It just becomes part of how you do things. The reality is, it may or may not render in such a way as anybody will notice it -- that doesn't mean I'm going to stop doing it.
If you were taught to use the two spaces, you're likely to always use that.
Re:Monospaced or proportional (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. Even with proportional fonts one space at the end of a period makes the text look crowded.
If that's true, why do you only use a single space in your comments?
Re:One space (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been an editor (copy editor, proofreader, senior editor, etc.) for 10 years now. One space.
Oh yeah? I've been a typer for 25+ years now. Two spaces (but HTML will render it as one without manual spacing which has always bugged me since 1994).
Re:Two spaces, bitches. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How to get out of work on a progeamming team (Score:1, Insightful)
If that last one provokes even a little discussion, step 6 should be "find a new job". Braceless ifs are a great way to cause mysterious bugs when somebody modifies the code down the line...
Re:One space (Score:2, Insightful)
>>>I've been an editor (copy editor, proofreader, senior editor, etc.) for 10 years now. One space.
No. Two spaces separate the sentences further apart, and make it easier to read the document without accidentally running two sentences together.
Re:One space (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been an editor (copy editor, proofreader, senior editor, etc.) for 10 years now. One space.
Why stop there? Really. Is even one space really needed? Doesn't a period, question mark or exclamation point denote the end of a sentence. Why go all redundant and put a space in at all . . .
Oops, I guess an ellipsis can end a sentence too.
I'm not being snarky here. But I am thinking that the answer to the question "Why not zero spaces?" would be "Because that would make it harder to read".
Re:Monospaced or proportional (Score:3, Insightful)
No because a typeface is (should be) designed with spaces in mind.
Yeah, the world should be a better place, but...
I've seen all too many (very popular) proportional fonts that even with two spaces, LOOK like one. And kerning seems to be a lost art these days. Ugh.
Re:HTML decides for you (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How to get out of work on a progeamming team (Score:3, Insightful)
Number 4. :
Yes.
Not leaving brackets around one-liners is an invitation to mistakes.
If you want to add a debug line to the one-line block, you need to add brackets.
If you remove it, then remove the brackets.
Using them always gives you one less thing to think about.
Re:Monospaced or proportional (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Monospaced or proportional (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably because html strips out the second space, and slashcode won't recognize  .
Re:What does slashdot say? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or a newline.
Re:False assumption (Score:1, Insightful)
I really don't see the justification for arguing the space equivalent of a tab - the whole point is so that everyone can set their tabstop however they prefer and not impose their particular preferences on anyone else.
Using spaces is as antisocial as encoding your editor's syntax highlighting into the source code as a bunch of ASCII control codes.
Re:False assumption (Score:5, Insightful)
So, in our efficient, modern world, I think there is no room for two spaces after a period. In the opinion of this particular copyeditor, this is a good thing.
Efficiency has nothing to do with it. In fact, efficiency is a complete red-herring, since presumably in our efficient, modern world we could simply write software to be intelligent enough to automatically add a space between sentences when it detects a period-space-word starting with a capital letter.
The reason you add two spaces is because the additional space aids your eyes in determining individual sentences. If you only use a single space to delineate words and sentences, all paragraphs merge into a jumble. Two spaces gives the eyes an additional visual cue, and thus is far easier to parse.
and it's from quite a credible source
An appeal to authority is less argumentatively valid than an appeal to reason. The Chicago Manual of Style gives no reason except some hand-waiving about our "efficient, modern world," which is a huge, steaming pile of bunkum.
Re:One space (Score:2, Insightful)
I've been an editor (copy editor, proofreader, senior editor, etc.) for 10 years now.
That is not an argument. Or rather, it is an exceedingly poor argument. Much like, my penis is larger than yours, therefor I am correct.
Try using reason next time.
For example: two spaces are easier to visually parse than one. That's testable, verifiable, and reproducible.
Re:XML To The Rescue (Score:1, Insightful)
Parsing failure: Invalid nesting at line 11. No end tag for element "word" before end of element "sentence".
Re:False assumption (Score:3, Insightful)
Kernel is 1 tab, which is always 8 spaces. This is completely different from 8 space indent.
Thank you. People who indent with spaces should be shot. Indent with tabs all you want and I can view it the way I want (2 space, 4 space, etc.).
If you use spaces instead of tabs, I'm going to have to take two seconds to run some elisp to fix it ;-)
Re:False assumption (Score:2, Insightful)
Efficiency has nothing to do with it.
The reason you add two spaces is because the additional space aids your eyes in determining individual sentences. Two spaces gives the eyes an additional visual cue, and thus is far easier to parse.
Please explain why you used one space between all sentences in your post.
Re:How to get out of work on a programming team (Score:1, Insightful)
no way! the only correct way is of course
If (foo=true) {
a=x;
}
*g*
Re:False assumption (Score:3, Insightful)
Computers really aren't very good at figuring this stuff out -- how would it space "Mr. Smith" or "Prof. Jones" or "M. Chevalier"?
Personally, I'd rather have the computers figure out "Oh... period followed by two spaces followed by Capital letter. Must have started a new sentence" and correct appropriately.
Re:One space (Score:3, Insightful)
But we all write all the time, if not intended for publication.
Should 1% or less of all writing dictate what should happen to the other 99%+ of writing?
Re:Two spaces, bitches. (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the many deficiencies of HTML.
Perhaps. I'm in the habit of putting an after periods when I write for HTML. Problem would be solved, if it wasn't for comment editing code that strips them out (such as here on Slashdot which you can see here since I put 4 nbsp's separated by spaces after the periods in this paragraph, and despite the fact they are preserved through the preview, they are having no visible effect). The deficiency is not strictly with HTML, but with some of the editors that work with it.
Though I agree that HTML does not make it easy to maintain double spaced sentence separation. I hate reading single-spaced sentence text, I always notice it and it looks ugly. Perhaps I should insert
after every sentence, and while that would look ugly too, at least it would show my displeasure with the sentence police who have apparently decided that we will not use two spaces...
Re:False assumption (Score:5, Insightful)
People who indent with spaces should be shot. Indent with tabs all you want and I can view it the way I want (2 space, 4 space, etc.). If you use spaces instead of tabs, I'm going to have to take two seconds to run some elisp to fix it ;-)
People who indent with tabs should be shot. Indent with spaces all you want and I can view it the way IT WAS WRITTEN.
There, fixed that for you.
Really, using tabs only works in theory. You need to be pretty anal to never ever layout anything using spaces or the tabs argument breaks down. God forbid I line up some stuff to make it more readable.
Yeah, yeah...this is religion to some. My argument is as moot as yours. Kinda what I'm pointing out.
Re:False assumption (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't just pick your own indent convention. Things get incredibly painful when people use editors that auto-indent to different widths.
Re:False assumption (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:False assumption (Score:3, Insightful)
People who indent with spaces should be shot. Indent with tabs all you want and I can view it the way I want (2 space, 4 space, etc.).
The ability for you to view it however you want is precisely what I'm trying to avoid when I set space indentations. Code should be no wider than 80 characters, so I can use cat in a standard terminal and see the results without them being wrapped around at illogical locations. That means we all need to agree on using monospace fonts, 2-space indentations to maximize available screen space, and you need to wrap your code manually at locations where it makes sense to do so, at or before the 80-char mark. If you edit it with your own custom view, you can't follow these guidelines. Then when I look at the code, it's going to suck in a way I can't fix with a script or style change.
You're on my lawn. Get off it.
Re:False assumption (Score:2, Insightful)
Now all you have to do is set your editor to always do that for automatic indentation, instead of inserting tabs for 8-space multiples and filling the rest with spaces.
And also remember to never use the TAB key, only the space bar, to create such spacing even if your function name is anImpossiblyLongFunctionName()
Re:False assumption (Score:3, Insightful)
It works fine. Using ____ for tab and . for space:
if (thing) {
____do stuff;
____and do some really
________long stuff;
____but-here(I'd like,
____.........these arguments,
____.........to align);
}
Changing ____ to ________ (or whatever) isn't a problem.