On Wed, 2002-12-04 at 19:01, David B Harris wrote:
> Also, in the description template, two spaces are used after a period -
> is that standard nowadays? (My understanding was that they were
> primarily used for variable-width fonts, where a single space would take
> up very little page space. Since the descriptions should be presented in
> a fixed-width font (for many reasons, this also includes GUI package
> browsers), they're a bit redundant.)
>
In correct English grammar and typography the space after a full stop
("period" in Merkin) is supposed to be a wider space then that between
words and after commas and suchlike.
Therefore typists were always taught to press the space key twice after
a full stop. This rule applies to any *fixed*-width font.
So it would be correct to use two spaces after the full stop in a
package description, because those are renfered with a fixed-width font.
If you are writing text in something that uses variable width fonts, the
program should know about English grammar and render the wider space
itself on any whitespace. (LaTeX is about the only thing that gets it
right though).
(If this is wrong, blame the secretary I just asked :)
Scott
--
Scott James Remnant Have you ever, ever felt like this? Had strange
http://netsplit.com/ things happen? Are you going round the twist?
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