Re: two whitespaces after full stop are correct in english !!
On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 10:24:37PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Jun 2008, Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
> > On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 10:09:33PM +0200, Simon Paillard wrote:
> > > 21:50 < CIA-4> debian-www: kreutzm * webwml/english/News/weekly/2008/01/index.wml: Remove superflous whitespaces after full stop
> > ....
> >
> > > 1/ Two whitespaces after full stop are correct in english !!
> >
> > That's new to me. For example in the Debconf templates, the agreement
> > (on debian-l10n-english!) was for using only one space. And as long as
> > I remember (but I might remember wrong) the standard was on one whitespace
> > in the English version. But anyhow, this should be consistent, the current
> > DPN uses both conventions (i.e. single and double spaces), I don't mind
> > which one is used.
>
> The standard for things which are using dynamically spaced fonts is a
> single space.[1] In HTML (and LaTeX) it doesn't matter, though,
It matters in LaTeX! Remember the \frenchspacing macro which switches
between English (two spaces) and French (one space) output style. But
you are right that the spaces in the input source files don't matter.
LaTeX formats the text according to the \frenchspacing macro.
See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_spacing
> because multiple spaces collapse. Putting in two spaces is just a
> waste of time, and changing it from one to two or two to one, doubly
> so.
About using XHTML conformance: It was decided that new documents should
be XHTML conform (http://www.debian.org/devel/website/desc) as it
increase readability of the source. Remember that using end tags might
simplify a translation (e.g. if the text refers to "the next paragraph"
but it's not obvious where it ends, on the next empty line or the next
</p>).
There is no good excuse for not using XHTML for new documents (even if
WML sometimes hides our attempts by rewriting stuff in the output). It
also trains us to write proper HTML for other documents (outside
WML/Debian website).
Jens
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