How many spaces after a period? [WAS: Re: [PATCH 7/7] Prefer $NM @file over calculating the cmd line length.]

[Gary V. Vaughan]

On 12 Sep 2010, at 15:01, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> * Peter Rosin wrote on Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 02:24:18PM CEST:
>> * libltdl/config/ltmain.m4sh (func_mode_link): Avoid calculating
>> the command line length and take the @file branch *if* the file
>> names needs to be converted for the toolchain and the @file
>> branch works. Fixes stresstest.at when doing a cross from Cygwin
> 
> Two spaces after period.

Only for texinfo markup I believe, since two spaces after a period are widely 
regarded as typographically bad (see the following and the reports it cites at 
the end):

    http://webword.com/reports/period.html

And even then, there is still support for normal spacing in texinfo:

    http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/texinfo/frenchspacing.html

[[ASIDE: Curious that the default address@hidden off' is used to indicate the 
use of 2 spaces at the end of a sentence, and declaring address@hidden on' 
conversely indicates the use of a single space at the end of a sentence - the 
exact opposite of how the term is normally used:

  "French spacing—a term synonymous with single space sentence spacing until 
the late 20th century.[7] Double spacing,[8] or placing two spaces between 
sentences (sometimes referred to as English spacing), came into widespread use 
with the introduction of the typewriter in the late 19th century" -- 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing]]

I see that the GCS wants two spaces after a period in code comments, but when I 
tested in emacs, my single spaced sentences worked just fine. It turns out that 
I added the following to my startup so long ago that I'd forgotten I had done 
it:

    (setq sentence-end-double-space nil)

Is there some other mandate that explains why we should go against modern 
typographical conventions and insist on double spaces?

Cheers,
-- 
Gary V. Vaughan (address@hidden)

PGP.sig
Description: This is a digitally signed message part