[Python-Dev] textwrap.py

[Fredrik Lundh]

tim wrote:

> Two spaces between sentences was the rule for monospaced fonts before
> Knuth was born.

in America, perhaps.  people from other parts of the world may
also wish to use the textwrap modules (or better, string.wrap).

so let's add an option (e.g. ms_davis_told_me_so=3D1 ;-)

> 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.

if you do the google searches I mention, you'll find that the
word "some" is more correct than "several".
=20
>     Are there TWO spaces after every sentence?  Manuscripts without
>     two spaces after each sentence will be rejected.

to quote another random web page:

    "Even I was told by my typing teacher to put two spaces after
    a period. It's just that I trusted the advice I got from graphic
    designers more than I trusted my typing teacher. My typing
    teacher also carried a lunch box and wore short-sleeved white
    dress shirts with really bad ties to school every day. It's up
    to you...."

and
   =20
    "... I've found tenacity and authority the overriding "arguments"
    for maintaining the two-space rule. Empirically and financially, the
    one-space rule makes sense."

> It wouldn't if you viewed it in Courier; for fixed-width fonts it very
> arguably helps people parse.

according to vision researchers, humans using their eyes to read
text don't care much about sentence breaks inside blocks of text
-- for some reason, they're probably more interested in the con-
tent.  and humans don't appear to use regular expressions at all.
how weird.

</F>