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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: you people are masochists: on quitting
Message-ID: <G4ALn5.692@world.std.com>
Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2000 22:11:28 GMT
References: <G45vtz.791@world.std.com> <I3jR5.18082$0X4.2979453@typhoon.southeast.rr.com> <G474nE.ILJ@world.std.com> <bhines-BC9476.12572419112000@news.verizon.net>
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Xref: news.duke.edu rec.games.int-fiction:58758

ben hines (I think, I accidentally trimmed it):
>buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett) wrote:
>>   "At least The divorce proceedings were simple" -- oops,
>>   a capitalized "The" and missing a double space at the
>>   beginning of the sentence, and we're still in the introductory
>>   text, lack of proofreading, ALARMS ARE GOING OFF.
>
>The "Double space" convention was for typewriters. In the computer age,
>it is improper to do so. One space between sentences.
>Look it up, if you don't believe me...

Uh, I don't care.  I was referring to an inconsistency in
the game--everywhere else were two spaces, except preceding
that one sentence.  Consistency is more important than an
arbitrary rule.  (And the argument you make is usually made
claiming that typewriters use fixed-width fonts, and computers
use proportional fonts; whereas when I run z-code games I
use a fixed-width font.  However, I've also heard claim
that that version of the argument is false too.  To hell
with prescriptive linguistics; until someone gives me reference
to a paper on this topic in the perceptual psychology
literature, I'll do what I please.)

ObIF:

I note, though, that with WinFrotz if ".  " appears at just
the wrong spot at the end of a line, one space will wrap around
to the next line, causing a single-character indentation.  The
second room of Metamorphoses had this problem.  I don't
know if the zcode specification has official rules for wordwrap
and this is endemic to all interpreters or not, but having seen
it, I think I'm leaning towards one space myself, because the
effect is pretty ugly, and it doesn't happen with one space,
I think.

SeanB
