[Python-Dev] textwrap.py

[Tim Peters]

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

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

Despite that you never bought a shift key, you use two spaces between
sentences.  Are you American?  François Pinard's name can't even be spelled
in American <wink>, and said

    Protection of full stops does not fall in that decoration category,
    it is essential.

Just complained about it, and I invite you to set your browser to a
fixed-width font and judge the readability of his msg compared to the pieces
of mine he quoted (Just, the point isn't to make the period stand out, it's
to make the start of the next sentence stand out):

    http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-June/025141.html

to my eyes single-space sucks with a monospaced font and I agree with
François on this it makes monospaced text look like a giant run-on sentence.

> so let's add an option (e.g. ms_davis_told_me_so=1 ;-)

>> 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,

I did, but I looked at a lot more than discussion boards.

> you'll find that the word "some" is more correct than "several".

I'm not sure that distinction means something; if it does, I don't buy it.

>>     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...."

A difference is that my quote came from a publisher spelling out
requirements for submission, while yours is pulled from a casual msg in a
discussion board.  This is the difference between quoting a journal and an
Archimedes Plutonium post from sci.physics <wink>.

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

And in *that* discussion board, the preceding msg in the thread says

    At my last Technical Writing job my manager was adamant about using
    two spaces after a period, and I have become accustomed to using two
    spaces.

and

    Two spaces after a period is still the rule ...

Selective quoting of random people blathering at each other doesn't count as
"research" to me.  If it does to anyone else, you can find hundreds of
quotes supporting any view you like.

> ...
> according to vision researchers, humans using their eyes to read
> text don't care much about sentence breaks inside blocks of text

This reads like a garbled paraphrase; I assume that if you had a real
reference, you would have given it <0.9 wink>.

> -- 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.

    [from Patricia Godfrey's review of "The Mac Is Not a Typewriter]
    ...
    The author details all the typewriter makeshifts, such as two
    hyphens for a dash, that no longer have to be—and should not be—
    employed when you’re working on a PC.  But in one case she reveals
    her youth.  Typing two spaces after an end-of-sentence period, she
    thinks, was only done on typewriters because typewriters have
    monospaced type, and you shouldn’t do it on a PC.

    Like many theories, it sounds logical, but those of us who read old
    books or are old enough to remember when typesetting was an art
    practiced by people, rather than the result of an algorithm, know
    better.  Typists were taught to hit two spaces after a period when
    typing because typeset material once upon a time used extra space
    there.

    ...

    This is an interesting instance of a phenomenon that we should all
    be aware of:  in times of much change, collective cultural amnesia
    can occur, and a whole society can forget something that "everyone
    knew."

The regexp attempts to preserve what everyone used to know, against
computer-inspired reduction to the simplest thing that can possibly be
implemented.

in-my-oourier-new-world-i-know-what-works-ly y'rs  - tim