[Python-Dev] textwrap.py

[Tim Peters]

[Guido]
> Knuth, when he invented TeX, heavily promoted a typesetting rule (for
> variable-width fonts) that allowed the whitespace after a full stop to
> stretch more than regular word space.  The Emacs folks, who love
> Knuth, translated this idea for fixed-width text into two spaces.

Two spaces between sentences was the rule for monospaced fonts before Knuth
was born.  It got beaten into me by my mother when I learned to type, and is
still the rule for monospaced fonts according to several style guides.

    Are there TWO spaces after every sentence?  Manuscripts without
    two spaces after each sentence will be rejected.

> Note that HTML also doesn't do this -- it always single-spaces text.

    Are there TWO spaces after every sentence?  Manuscripts without
    two spaces after each sentence will be rejected.

The web page from which that quote was taken forces an extra space after the
question mark (I didn't insert it after pasting the quote) in the obvious
way:

    Are there TWO spaces after every sentence?  Manuscripts
    without two spaces after each will be rejected.

> Looks fine to me.

It wouldn't if you viewed it in Courier; for fixed-width fonts it very
arguably helps people parse.  The two-space gimmick is out of favor for
published works because proportional fonts and kerning are adequate to
distinguish sentences.  It still Rulz the DOS box, though <wink>.