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This is quote possibly the most beautiful blog I have ever seen. That said, it's a stupid argument. If you want to two-space, fine, but be aware that most peop
by debacle 14y ago
This is quote possibly the most beautiful blog I have ever seen.
That said, it's a stupid argument. If you want to two-space, fine, but be aware that most people believe and understand you're living in the typographic stone age alongside people who indent their paragraphs and use Whitesmiths.
Two-spacing is a result of monospace typewriters, which couldn't provide the "space and a half" spacing that traditional typesetting put between sentences, however these days most of the people I see doing two-spacing are in their forties or older, and probably used a typewriter before they used a computer.
Even when using a monospace font, I prefer single spacing. Why? It's easier to be consistent. If I forget to two space, or have a typo and miss a two-space, short of creating a really nasty regex I'm not going to be able to find it.
- lucian1900 14y agoWell, his floaty text on the left of the column is a fixed distance from the left margin, so it overlaps the column unless i make the window fullscreen.
- debacle 14y agoI use Windows, so I don't know how to use an application if it's not fullscreen.
- astrodust 14y agoYou're going to love Windows 8.
- stevelosh 14y agoReally? It shouldn't, and doesn't for me on Firefox and Chrome: http://i.imgur.com/yGQSK.png http://i.imgur.com/yGQSK.png What browser are you using? (Note: it will overlap if you resize the window horizontally, but should fix itself as soon as you scroll a pixel in any direction)
- lucian1900 14y agoChrome. Yeah, it does move to a sane position when I scroll. Perhaps it should move when I resize as well.
- stevelosh 14y agoGood point -- fixed.
- mef 14y agoThe heading showing up dynamically in the margin as I scroll I found to be quite distracting while reading. Text fading in and out while you scroll and read only serves to compete for your attention.
- keithpeter 14y agoYes, it was quite nice the first time I scrolled down, then became somewhat distracting. The fade in happens after you scroll past the relevant heading for me (Firefox, Ubuntu 12.04, 1080p screen). https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8403291/stevelosh.png https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8403291/stevelosh.png and https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8403291/stevelosh2.png https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8403291/stevelosh2.png show what I mean. I actually do like the marginalia, like in Tufte's books, side boxes as a sort of commentary or summary of the main text. I'd prefer them to always be there. Lets face it, on a widescreen monitor of modest resolution, the page looks thin otherwise.
- pedrocr 14y ago>This is quote possibly the most beautiful blog I have ever seen. At least on my Chrome on Windows 7 the fonts look horrible. I've had that in other places too, I wonder what's wrong with my setup.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoThere are sometimes font rendering bugs, and you might want to check your ClearType settings. There's a tuning wizard in the control panel.
- nollidge 14y agoThis is what happens in Chrome on Windows 7. Its rendering of remote fonts is horrible, and the Chrome team should be ashamed of themselves. @font-face is incredibly common now and Chrome on Windows just ruins many very well-done designs.
- pedrocr 14y agoThanks for the heads-up. A quick google later and I see it's a common issue. It even seems to be unstable when I zoom in/out, whereas some levels of zoom are sometimes at least readable but bringing it back to the default zoom will show a different rendering than initially. Very odd indeed. I've tried fiddling with the Cleartype settings but it doesn't seem to help.
- nollidge 14y agoSame here. As far as I was able to discern with some research, it has to do with the rendering engine that Chrome uses - I think GDI+ instead of DirectDraw, or perhaps vice-versa, whereas Firefox and IE use the better one, and IIRC Safari has its own. EDIT: This page has more info, but I'm not sure if it's up-to-date: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/24/a-closer-look-at-font-rendering/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/24/a-closer-look-at-...
- think-large 14y agoI'm in my 20s and have never touched a type writer. I use the two space method almost exclusively because that's what I was taught. Sure I mess it up sometimes, but this article does make a fantastic case for why to use it for parsing. If I do mess it up that will show in my parsing, and I'll be able to go back and fix the spacing in the future.
- andrewcooke 14y agowhy is it stupid? it seems quite coherent: he's using monospace in the editor and wants the clarity; the processing for presentation strips it out so it's not present where it's not needed. that seems reasonable, consistent, and sensible.
- debacle 14y agoSteve's arguments aren't stupid. The argument itself is stupid.
- andrewcooke 14y agoah, ok. maybe "pointless debate" would be clearer than "stupid argument"? i don't think i'm the only one that misunderstood...
- driverdan 14y agoDid you even read the whole article? He directly addressed your first reason. The second reason is weak IMO. What if you forget a period? What if you forget a space between words? If you double space, forgetting it is a typo just like any other typo.
- jonny_eh 14y agoIf you capitalize the first word of each sentence it becomes rather obvious if you forget a period.
- samstokes 14y agoYou rebut the author by reiterating arguments he already addressed in his post ("most people don't like it", "only typewriters need it", plus a consistency point he didn't address). Do you feel his rebuttals to those arguments were insufficient? What do you think of the concrete benefit he suggested of two-spacing in vim?
- johncoltrane 14y agoThat's easy: how you write your prose or your code should not be dictated by the limitations of your tools. Tools are tools and must satisfy their user's needs. That's the whole point of a tool. If a tool doesn't satisfy your needs and you can't modify it you must find another one. It's going to be hard if you are emotionally attached to that tool, though.
- tallanvor 14y ago> If you want to two-space, fine, but be aware that most people believe and understand you're living in the typographic stone age alongside people who indent their paragraphs and use Whitesmiths. Is there really any reason to disparage people who don't agree with you? Just accept it as a personal preference or something done because that's how people were taught and move on. Not everything needs to be a "but I'm right" thing.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- SeanLuke 14y ago> and use Whitesmiths I beg your pardon.