Re: description writing guide
On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 02:49:12PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> Steve Greenland <steveg@moregruel.net> writes:
> > However, this is all on *output* (display, whatever). The input text
> > should have just a single space. The text has to be reformatted to fit
> > the screen (display area) anyway (even on a terminal), and it's the job
> > of the reformatter/text renderer/whatever to get it "right".
>
> It is not possible for an automated renderer to figure out where
> sentence boundaries are without some kind of help, and a mere period
> is not sufficient help. So, a good convention to establish might be
> that the string ". " indicates the end of a sentence, and ". " does
> not.
I think *roff's trick of "put a line break after the full stop at the
end of a sentence" would be better. That way current frontends don't
have to change (normal word-wrapping will sort it out) unless they take
the decision that their output looks better with two spaces, at which
point it's trivial to do so.
("Easy things should be easy, and hard things possible.")
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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