4 ms·

Yes — the feeling it gives me is of looking at those glossy magazines where nobody really expects to read the articles, it's all about the pictures and the over

by jfk13 5y ago

Yes — the feeling it gives me is of looking at those glossy magazines where nobody really expects to read the articles, it's all about the pictures and the overall shiny appearance. The eye just glides over the surface, never quite catching hold of the actual content of the text. Moreover, the author seems confused about specifics of their own design: > Numbers are oldstyle proportional and are separated from the text solely by an en dash. No, it's an en space, which is something quite different. This sort of mixup doesn't exactly inspire confidence. I didn't read the whole piece — partly because of the font — but I'm not inspired to follow in its footsteps or look to the author for design advice.

Jenz 5y ago
> No, it's an en space, which is something quite different. Yeah, haha, at that point I lost the last hope I had of the author having much expertise in what he was doing. That said I very much respect the obviously well-intended attempt, and hope the author’ll try again. Practical Typography by Matthew Butterick [1] is a very nice introduction to typography for laymen. [1]: https://practicaltypography.com/ https://practicaltypography.com/
- unmole 5y ago
  I'm ambivalent about most of the suggestions but please, for the love of all that is good, don't break people's expectations about what links look like.
  - Jenz 5y ago
    And if people’s expectations of what links look like (blue, underlined) are so distracting it massively impacts the readers ease to read the actual content?
    - unmole 5y ago
      Still less jarring than the random capitalisation.
cge 5y ago
>No, it's an en space, which is something quite different. This sort of mixup doesn't exactly inspire confidence. There appear to be numerous mixups that likely come from copying examples without understanding them. One example that stood out to me was with block equations. The author points out that the paragraph after an equation is not indented, something they likely copied from LaTeX. It's true that, if you simply look at many LaTeX documents visually, the text after an equation is often not indented. But that is because for LaTeX, and the styles it is built around, a block equation is considered to be part of a paragraph. For some people, they are outright considered part of sentences, put on their own line only for clarity, with commas or full stops at the end to make the sentences grammatically correct. The point of not indenting the text after an equation is to indicate to the reader that the text is not a new paragraph. An actual new paragraph after an equation in LaTeX is indented by default. The author appears to have seen some documents with equations, not understanding this distinction, and noticing the lack of indentation after most equations, copied the visual result without understanding the meaning.
- oefrha 5y ago
  > But that is because LaTeX, and the styles it is built around, a block equation is considered to be part of a paragraph. For some people, they are outright considered part of sentences, put on their own line only for clarity, with commas or full stops at the end to make the sentences grammatically correct. As someone once trained as a mathematician, I can confirm that's exactly the case. Simple example: Newton's second law states that $$F = ma,$$ where $F$, $m$ and $a$ are the force, mass, and acceleration, respectively. Of course you don't indent the rest of the sentence.
xqyf 5y ago
Even more infuriating is that they're using en dashes places where they should be em dashes. For example: […] choices – e.g. I cannot fix small-resolution screens or bad user font choices – but at least […]

by jfk13 5y ago

Jenz 5y ago

> No, it's an en space, which is something quite different. Yeah, haha, at that point I lost the last hope I had of the author having much expertise in what he was doing. That said I very much respect the obviously well-intended attempt, and hope the author’ll try again. Practical Typography by Matthew Butterick [1] is a very nice introduction to typography for laymen. [1]: https://practicaltypography.com/ https://practicaltypography.com/

unmole 5y ago
I'm ambivalent about most of the suggestions but please, for the love of all that is good, don't break people's expectations about what links look like.
- Jenz 5y ago
  And if people’s expectations of what links look like (blue, underlined) are so distracting it massively impacts the readers ease to read the actual content?
  - unmole 5y ago
    Still less jarring than the random capitalisation.

cge 5y ago

>No, it's an en space, which is something quite different. This sort of mixup doesn't exactly inspire confidence. There appear to be numerous mixups that likely come from copying examples without understanding them. One example that stood out to me was with block equations. The author points out that the paragraph after an equation is not indented, something they likely copied from LaTeX. It's true that, if you simply look at many LaTeX documents visually, the text after an equation is often not indented. But that is because for LaTeX, and the styles it is built around, a block equation is considered to be part of a paragraph. For some people, they are outright considered part of sentences, put on their own line only for clarity, with commas or full stops at the end to make the sentences grammatically correct. The point of not indenting the text after an equation is to indicate to the reader that the text is not a new paragraph. An actual new paragraph after an equation in LaTeX is indented by default. The author appears to have seen some documents with equations, not understanding this distinction, and noticing the lack of indentation after most equations, copied the visual result without understanding the meaning.

oefrha 5y ago
> But that is because LaTeX, and the styles it is built around, a block equation is considered to be part of a paragraph. For some people, they are outright considered part of sentences, put on their own line only for clarity, with commas or full stops at the end to make the sentences grammatically correct. As someone once trained as a mathematician, I can confirm that's exactly the case. Simple example: Newton's second law states that $$F = ma,$$ where $F$, $m$ and $a$ are the force, mass, and acceleration, respectively. Of course you don't indent the rest of the sentence.

xqyf 5y ago

Even more infuriating is that they're using en dashes places where they should be em dashes. For example: […] choices – e.g. I cannot fix small-resolution screens or bad user font choices – but at least […]