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posted by
Fnord666
on Friday May 11 2018, @12:26PM
from the BBC-thinks-it's-a-paragraph-break-after-a-period dept.
from the BBC-thinks-it's-a-paragraph-break-after-a-period dept.
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
In what may be one of the most controversial studies of the year, researchers at Skidmore College—clearly triggered by a change in the American Psychological Association (APA) style book—sought to quantify the benefits of two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence. After conducting an eye-tracking experiment with 60 Skidmore students, Rebecca L. Johnson, Becky Bui, and Lindsay L. Schmitt found that two spaces at the end of a period slightly improved the processing of text during reading. The research was trumpeted by some press outlets as a vindication of two-spacers' superiority.
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Two Spaces After Period Are Better Than One, Except Maybe They Aren't, Study Finds
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @02:04PM (10 children)
I guess, in countries where the two-space convention was never ever used to begin with.
I mean, just because it was the usual thing to do in your country doesn't mean it is the one and only thing to do worldwide.
Also, it is sort of pointless if you are using any system that does the spacing for you (like LaTeX or HTML). Your text will look exactly the same, no matter how many space characters you type. Often those systems will have another way to tell them what spacing to use (note that in LaTeX you have to do something special if your point does not end a sentence!).
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday May 11 2018, @02:19PM (9 children)
Why does HTML ignore side-by-side spaces when it doesn't ignore side-by-side anything else? I can type ttt, or ***, [[[, I can even escape it all /[/[/[ and it shows what is there, but spaces get treated differently?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday May 11 2018, @02:20PM
oops on the escape, LOL. Still drinking coffee.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday May 11 2018, @02:28PM (1 child)
In HTML, spaces and certain other characters are treated as "whitespace" which is a single thing.
but what happens if I have whitespace on a dark themed web page?
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(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday May 11 2018, @10:41PM
Meh -- I think it's just a lazy way to deal with a line wrap between two space characters so the first line doesn't start with a space. I can understand why whitespace can be important in a command, script, or program -- but in the output?? That feels lazy.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday May 11 2018, @03:05PM (4 children)
Sometimes, with HTML, you have to do things that look odd. That is, until they are rendered. Then, they look normal. Well, normal-ish.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Friday May 11 2018, @04:29PM
No kidding.
.
It's ridiculous having to put in other characters to get the spacing I want between lines.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @04:53PM (1 child)
Careful with those , they can lead to odd line wrapping.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @09:05PM
Took me a ridiculously long time (like, 10~15 years) to realize that is not just a "space", but a "non-breaking space". Heh. Of course, I only occasionally dabbled in some HTML, but still.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday May 11 2018, @10:43PM
Sure -- but typing out an HTML character code is not the same as hitting the spacebar twice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @08:08PM
Because it was authored by hand and that required it to be readable. One line of 999999 characters long isn't quite as readable. And even in case of generated HTML there are still whitespaces floating around.