4 ms·

Honestly, I think it's neurotic that human beings will receive criticism for, and have to worry about the choice of how many times they tap a space bar when wri

Honestly, I think it's neurotic that human beings will receive criticism for, and have to worry about the choice of how many times they tap a space bar when writing (not even coding). That we have to even include things like output format and source format to distinguish between is just on another level entirely (I'm not criticizing you, your point is valid). I mean, when I read titles like this I think to myself, "Who gives a shit?"...then I read a long thread and think, "Wow, this is actually a real debate." I never knew there was so much that could go into a decision about typesetting spaces. You learn something new everyday.

harshreality 13y ago
Find a reason to write a program that needs to separate prose into sentences, then ask yourself if the argument is neurotic. It's common to use tables of abbreviations to know when a period is probably not the end of a sentence, and then apply imperfect rules to handle edge cases like proper nouns. It's tedious and inaccurate.
- TillE 13y ago
  Tough. You will never ever ever convince the world to conform to a rigid standard of two spaces between sentences, so your program is going to have to handle that kind of input.
  - harshreality 13y ago
    Granted, any program that has to deal with other writers' text has to deal with both possibilities, but two spaces improves accuracy, both for typesetting and for semantic recognition of sentences for other purposes. Even in a document with a mix of two spaces and one space between sentences, a program can settle a case that would otherwise be ambiguous if there are two spaces. The more simplistic (and inaccurate) your single-space sentence determination algorithm is, the more valuable it is to be able to assume (or assign a high weighting that) a two-space separation marks a new sentence. I know the world will never universally adopt using two spaces, but that doesn't mean they should get away with making spurious typesetting-related arguments and undoing the work of those who use 2 spaces. If a few more people decide that semantic richness is enough reason to start using two spaces, so much the better.
    - vizeroth 13y ago
      The problem is that the argument for using 2 spaces was never originally about parsing the text with a computer. Further, even the justification for using 2 spaces in the article is not doing so, either, it's an attempt at justifying using 2 spaces to emulate a typesetting practice (using a single space that was 2 or 3 times as wide as the space between words) which you still would not have expected someone to blindly apply to all text (you might have someone do it to all of the text just so a more experienced typesetter could come along behind them and make the adjustments that required a good eye for the work). Eventually publishers just found it easier to turn authors into apprentice typesetters, and probably found that most of the work they produce isn't worth paying an experienced typesetter to finish with that level of detail (and this attitude also shows in the editing of mass-market material, too). Of course, most mass-market publications use spaces of the same size after the end of a sentence as between words, now, and probably don't do much manual adjustment of the alignment of the text, either. Additionally, if you assume that "period space space" indicates the end of a sentence, eventually you're going to run into some case where that's wrong, too. It's bound to happen in a world where we routinely teach people to blindly hit "period space space." You may be better off incrementally improving your lexer/parser (or using and contributing to an open source project) and throwing out the excess spaces.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
rmrfrmrf 13y ago
> I mean, when I read titles like this I think to myself, "Who gives a shit?"...then I read a long thread and think, "Wow, this is actually a real debate." May I interest you in some further reading? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation
- gmac 13y ago
  For both two spaces and and toilet paper, the heart of the issue is not that it's the slightest bit important, but that one's own preference is always so blindingly obviously correct.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - pbreit 13y ago
    With things that have functional differences, one way is definitionally "better". They can't be the same and they aren't merely aesthetic preferences. ("over" and one-space are proper).
    - OvidNaso 13y ago
      Now you're thinking about the nominal definition of "better", but I think you underestimate the scope of and importance people give to aesthetics. But none of that really matters because in the next ontological step we question the definition of definitions. [1] And if you look into it, the smartest people in history haven't really gotten any closer to putting debates like these to rest. [1]http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/definitions/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/definitions/
  - mratzloff 13y ago
    For example, I butter my bread butter-side up, which is obviously correct, but Zooks prefer butter-side down. Something really ought to be done about them.
krisgee 13y ago
bracket_fun(){ stuff; } or bracket_fun() { stuff; }
- NickNameNick 13y ago
  what, no tabs vs spaces? and is a tabstop 2,3,4,6 or 8 spaces wide?
- dnautics 13y ago
  oh man I learned allman style as a high schooler, and it makes me sad that certain constructs in javascript (return) do not allow you to do this, and that gofmt forces you to use K&R...
  - krisgee 13y ago
    I sympathize with you. I learned allman style first because that's what my java programming book used. When I started learning C, which is pretty K&R dominated, I found it really hard but got used to it and now when I go back and look at that java book it's like constantly stalling in a standard shift car.

harshreality 13y ago

Find a reason to write a program that needs to separate prose into sentences, then ask yourself if the argument is neurotic. It's common to use tables of abbreviations to know when a period is probably not the end of a sentence, and then apply imperfect rules to handle edge cases like proper nouns. It's tedious and inaccurate.

TillE 13y ago
Tough. You will never ever ever convince the world to conform to a rigid standard of two spaces between sentences, so your program is going to have to handle that kind of input.
- harshreality 13y ago
  Granted, any program that has to deal with other writers' text has to deal with both possibilities, but two spaces improves accuracy, both for typesetting and for semantic recognition of sentences for other purposes. Even in a document with a mix of two spaces and one space between sentences, a program can settle a case that would otherwise be ambiguous if there are two spaces. The more simplistic (and inaccurate) your single-space sentence determination algorithm is, the more valuable it is to be able to assume (or assign a high weighting that) a two-space separation marks a new sentence. I know the world will never universally adopt using two spaces, but that doesn't mean they should get away with making spurious typesetting-related arguments and undoing the work of those who use 2 spaces. If a few more people decide that semantic richness is enough reason to start using two spaces, so much the better.
  - vizeroth 13y ago
    The problem is that the argument for using 2 spaces was never originally about parsing the text with a computer. Further, even the justification for using 2 spaces in the article is not doing so, either, it's an attempt at justifying using 2 spaces to emulate a typesetting practice (using a single space that was 2 or 3 times as wide as the space between words) which you still would not have expected someone to blindly apply to all text (you might have someone do it to all of the text just so a more experienced typesetter could come along behind them and make the adjustments that required a good eye for the work). Eventually publishers just found it easier to turn authors into apprentice typesetters, and probably found that most of the work they produce isn't worth paying an experienced typesetter to finish with that level of detail (and this attitude also shows in the editing of mass-market material, too). Of course, most mass-market publications use spaces of the same size after the end of a sentence as between words, now, and probably don't do much manual adjustment of the alignment of the text, either. Additionally, if you assume that "period space space" indicates the end of a sentence, eventually you're going to run into some case where that's wrong, too. It's bound to happen in a world where we routinely teach people to blindly hit "period space space." You may be better off incrementally improving your lexer/parser (or using and contributing to an open source project) and throwing out the excess spaces.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

rmrfrmrf 13y ago

> I mean, when I read titles like this I think to myself, "Who gives a shit?"...then I read a long thread and think, "Wow, this is actually a real debate." May I interest you in some further reading? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation

gmac 13y ago
For both two spaces and and toilet paper, the heart of the issue is not that it's the slightest bit important, but that one's own preference is always so blindingly obviously correct.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- pbreit 13y ago
  With things that have functional differences, one way is definitionally "better". They can't be the same and they aren't merely aesthetic preferences. ("over" and one-space are proper).
  - OvidNaso 13y ago
    Now you're thinking about the nominal definition of "better", but I think you underestimate the scope of and importance people give to aesthetics. But none of that really matters because in the next ontological step we question the definition of definitions. [1] And if you look into it, the smartest people in history haven't really gotten any closer to putting debates like these to rest. [1]http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/definitions/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/definitions/
- mratzloff 13y ago
  For example, I butter my bread butter-side up, which is obviously correct, but Zooks prefer butter-side down. Something really ought to be done about them.

krisgee 13y ago

bracket_fun(){ stuff; } or bracket_fun() { stuff; }

NickNameNick 13y ago
what, no tabs vs spaces? and is a tabstop 2,3,4,6 or 8 spaces wide?
dnautics 13y ago
oh man I learned allman style as a high schooler, and it makes me sad that certain constructs in javascript (return) do not allow you to do this, and that gofmt forces you to use K&R...
- krisgee 13y ago
  I sympathize with you. I learned allman style first because that's what my java programming book used. When I started learning C, which is pretty K&R dominated, I found it really hard but got used to it and now when I go back and look at that java book it's like constantly stalling in a standard shift car.