5 ms·

The problem isn't line spacing whatsoever, it's tracing which one of the 10 lines you are reading from one side of a screen to another as your read it. Did you

by mrep 7y ago

The problem isn't line spacing whatsoever, it's tracing which one of the 10 lines you are reading from one side of a screen to another as your read it. Did you make your comment 3 paragraphs ironically?

Dylan16807 7y ago
> The problem isn't line spacing whatsoever, it's tracing which one of the 10 lines you are reading from one side of a screen to another as your read it. Then make your window less wide. It's not the writer's problem. > Did you make your comment 3 paragraphs ironically? No, but I don't think it would be hard to read if it was one paragraph. That formatting is to add in small pauses, not to make it easier to read when lines wrap.
- acqq 7y ago
  > Then make your window less wide. It's not the writer's problem. Exactly. Not all we want and need to tell other people can be reduced to tweets. whoever has the windows maximised on a desktop has another option, and the paragraph was never a 140 character slogan.
  - downtide 7y ago
    Problem is that tabbed interfaces make window resizing harder. Bring back MDIs (maybe)!
    - acqq 7y ago
      It’s the opposite: if you insist on keeping your browser maximized that can mean that you probably need all the width on some other site which scales poorly. I never keep my browser maximized.
      - pmontra 7y ago
        As a reference, I maximize my browsers when I'm using developers tools or when I'm using pseudo desktop web apps, usually customer mandated. I'm thinking about Kanbanize, Trello, almost all of Google, Travis, etc. Apps that display a lot of information. HN and other text based sites are more readable in narrower windows or on a phone. HN on a phone suffers when comments are deeply nested (this one) and when somebody quotes text using spaces as of it was a block of code.
      - downtide 7y ago
        Nope, problem is each window may need a different sizing. With a tabbed interface you resize the lot.
        acqq 7y ago
        For those with your use cases the browsers should allow “per site” saved local margins. Bur it seems the ad delivery has the priority. I simply have a separate browser window for “wide development” sites. I see nothing wrong with that.
    - SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
      Tree-Style-Tabs (Firefox extension) prevents this issue.
      - downtide 7y ago
        Just tried out Tree style tabs, how does this prevent this issue? I have two pages in two tabs open. To read one I resize the window, I go to the other it has been resized also.
- Vinnl 7y ago
  > That formatting is to add in small pauses But... The lack of pauses is exactly what makes a tall paragraph hard to read?
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    Are you arguing that, or offering it as a potential argument? § That's not what mrep claimed made it hard to read. They said it was hard to trace lines. § And there are other ways of adding pauses, on top of those pauses not being very necessary in the first place. I could do without them just fine. § More generally, as long as a big paragraph is focused on one topic, and nobody is doing a point-by-point reply, it works just fine.
    - Vinnl 7y ago
      I am arguing that, and it's also how I read mrep's comment: it's a wall of text with no clear pauses, making it hard to read. And if those §'s are your other ways of adding pauses, then those are entirely insufficient for inserting pauses for most readers, including me: we're not trained to read those characters as pauses. Sure, there might be other ways. But they're not applied, making the comment harder to follow for some people than it would be had it been subdivided into paragraphs, and mrep was merely helpfully pointing that out in case mltony wanted to keep those people in mind in the future. But good for you that you're not one of those people, I guess.
      - Dylan16807 7y ago
        > those are entirely insufficient for inserting pauses Pretend I said "indicator of separation" instead of "pause" then. > Sure, there might be other ways. But they're not applied, making the comment harder to follow for some people than it would be had it been subdivided into paragraphs, and mrep was merely helpfully pointing that out in case mltony wanted to keep those people in mind in the future. By talking about "other ways" to mark a logical separation, I think you're on a completely different argument than mrep. mrep is saying that it's physically hard to track the lines when reading, which is entirely a function of line length and spacing. mrep's problems would be solved if I started adding newlines in the middle of sentences, even though that would make things worse in terms of subdividing into coherent paragraphs.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

by mrep 7y ago

Dylan16807 7y ago

> The problem isn't line spacing whatsoever, it's tracing which one of the 10 lines you are reading from one side of a screen to another as your read it. Then make your window less wide. It's not the writer's problem. > Did you make your comment 3 paragraphs ironically? No, but I don't think it would be hard to read if it was one paragraph. That formatting is to add in small pauses, not to make it easier to read when lines wrap.

acqq 7y ago
> Then make your window less wide. It's not the writer's problem. Exactly. Not all we want and need to tell other people can be reduced to tweets. whoever has the windows maximised on a desktop has another option, and the paragraph was never a 140 character slogan.
- downtide 7y ago
  Problem is that tabbed interfaces make window resizing harder. Bring back MDIs (maybe)!
  - acqq 7y ago
    It’s the opposite: if you insist on keeping your browser maximized that can mean that you probably need all the width on some other site which scales poorly. I never keep my browser maximized.
    - pmontra 7y ago
      As a reference, I maximize my browsers when I'm using developers tools or when I'm using pseudo desktop web apps, usually customer mandated. I'm thinking about Kanbanize, Trello, almost all of Google, Travis, etc. Apps that display a lot of information. HN and other text based sites are more readable in narrower windows or on a phone. HN on a phone suffers when comments are deeply nested (this one) and when somebody quotes text using spaces as of it was a block of code.
    - downtide 7y ago
      Nope, problem is each window may need a different sizing. With a tabbed interface you resize the lot.
      - acqq 7y ago
        For those with your use cases the browsers should allow “per site” saved local margins. Bur it seems the ad delivery has the priority. I simply have a separate browser window for “wide development” sites. I see nothing wrong with that.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
    Tree-Style-Tabs (Firefox extension) prevents this issue.
    - downtide 7y ago
      Just tried out Tree style tabs, how does this prevent this issue? I have two pages in two tabs open. To read one I resize the window, I go to the other it has been resized also.
Vinnl 7y ago
> That formatting is to add in small pauses But... The lack of pauses is exactly what makes a tall paragraph hard to read?
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  Are you arguing that, or offering it as a potential argument? § That's not what mrep claimed made it hard to read. They said it was hard to trace lines. § And there are other ways of adding pauses, on top of those pauses not being very necessary in the first place. I could do without them just fine. § More generally, as long as a big paragraph is focused on one topic, and nobody is doing a point-by-point reply, it works just fine.
  - Vinnl 7y ago
    I am arguing that, and it's also how I read mrep's comment: it's a wall of text with no clear pauses, making it hard to read. And if those §'s are your other ways of adding pauses, then those are entirely insufficient for inserting pauses for most readers, including me: we're not trained to read those characters as pauses. Sure, there might be other ways. But they're not applied, making the comment harder to follow for some people than it would be had it been subdivided into paragraphs, and mrep was merely helpfully pointing that out in case mltony wanted to keep those people in mind in the future. But good for you that you're not one of those people, I guess.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      > those are entirely insufficient for inserting pauses Pretend I said "indicator of separation" instead of "pause" then. > Sure, there might be other ways. But they're not applied, making the comment harder to follow for some people than it would be had it been subdivided into paragraphs, and mrep was merely helpfully pointing that out in case mltony wanted to keep those people in mind in the future. By talking about "other ways" to mark a logical separation, I think you're on a completely different argument than mrep. mrep is saying that it's physically hard to track the lines when reading, which is entirely a function of line length and spacing. mrep's problems would be solved if I started adding newlines in the middle of sentences, even though that would make things worse in terms of subdividing into coherent paragraphs.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]