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Are Two Spaces After a Period Better Than One? (arstechnica.com)
Researchers at Skidmore College conducted an eye-tracking experiment with 60 Skidmore students and found that two spaces at the end of a period slightly improved the processing of text during reading. Ars Technica reports the findings: Previous cognitive science research has been divided on the issue. Some research has suggested closer spacing of the beginning of a new sentence may allow a reader to capture more characters in their parafoveal vision -- the area of the retina just outside the area of focus, or fovea -- and thus start processing the information sooner (though experimental evidence of that was not very strong). Other prior research has inferred that an extra space prevents lateral interference in processing text, making it easier for the reader to identify the word in focus. But no prior research found by [study authors] Johnson, Bui, and Schmitt actually measured reader performance with each typographic scheme.
First, they divided their group of 60 research subjects by way of a keyboard task -- the subjects typed text dictated to them into a computer and were sorted into "one-spacers" (39 regularly put a single space between sentences) and "two-spacers" (21 hit that space bar twice consistently after a period). Every student subject used but a single space after each comma. Having identified subjects' proclivities, the researchers then gave them 21 paragraphs to read (including one practice paragraph) on a computer screen and tracked their eye movement as they read using an Eyelink 1000 video-based eye tracking system. [...] The "one-spacers" were, as a group, slower readers across the board (by about 10 words per minute), and they showed statistically insignificant variation across all four spacing practices. And "two-spacers" saw a three-percent increase in reading speed for paragraphs in their own favored spacing scheme. The controversial part of the study has to do with the 14 point Courier New font that the researchers presented to the students. "Courier New is a fixed-width font that resembles typewritten text -- used by hardly anyone for documents," reports Ars. "Even the APA suggests using 12 point Times Roman, a proportional-width font. Fixed-width fonts make a double-space more pronounced."
First, they divided their group of 60 research subjects by way of a keyboard task -- the subjects typed text dictated to them into a computer and were sorted into "one-spacers" (39 regularly put a single space between sentences) and "two-spacers" (21 hit that space bar twice consistently after a period). Every student subject used but a single space after each comma. Having identified subjects' proclivities, the researchers then gave them 21 paragraphs to read (including one practice paragraph) on a computer screen and tracked their eye movement as they read using an Eyelink 1000 video-based eye tracking system. [...] The "one-spacers" were, as a group, slower readers across the board (by about 10 words per minute), and they showed statistically insignificant variation across all four spacing practices. And "two-spacers" saw a three-percent increase in reading speed for paragraphs in their own favored spacing scheme. The controversial part of the study has to do with the 14 point Courier New font that the researchers presented to the students. "Courier New is a fixed-width font that resembles typewritten text -- used by hardly anyone for documents," reports Ars. "Even the APA suggests using 12 point Times Roman, a proportional-width font. Fixed-width fonts make a double-space more pronounced."
Due to retina detachment I am almost blinded on one eye and the vision of other eye is slowly degrading
To compensate the gradual loss of vision I make the font of my computer screen much larger, and I change the font setting and use fonts that are much easier to my eyes
Now I can appreciate why good fonts are much better than lousy ones
Before I had that retina problem my vision was 20/20. I actually had a pilot license
At that time fonts for me were, well, fonts. Some were boring, some were pretty, some were crazy
Now, my view on the fonts (pun intended) has totally changed. Some of the fonts I used to think as 'funny' or 'pretty' are actually very tiring for my degrading eyes. Those which were deemed 'boring', on the other hand, surprised my eyes for they do not need to be 'stared' for too long
So it's not how many spaces after a period. It's the size of the font and the structure of the font that counts !!
2 spaces and the Oxford comma! You one space kids with your missing commas can get off my lawn!
No one has a lifetime of reading monospace text anymore, which is the only thing this study covered.
Also, in most cases text input have their spaces normalized.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Oh, look at that.... Slashdot replaces double-space after period with single space. ...
It is not Slashdot. It is a browser and the HTML. Two or three spaces are always one in the browser https://stackoverflow.com/ques...
So a client of an Internet shop sees always one space, and it is confusing for her/him why the product does not sort properly.
In fact, I had a lot of problems with these multiple spaces coming with product titles from suppliers. And I do not work only with English language.
Slashdot loses formatting unless you post using the "code" option.
Also, generally on the web, browsers render HTML multiple spaces as a single space - try using instead.
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Here's the correctly spaced version of your text:
I'm not sure why this is being discussed. It makes absolutely no difference how many spaces you put after a period. See, that was one space. That was 2 spaces and it looks exactly the same. This time I used 3 spaces. That was 8 spaces, and here comes 13. Could you tell the difference? I didn't think so.
/*Standard SQL*\ /*Depending of SQL Server commands there may be some difference*\
select * from table where title like '%first_word %second_word%'
or
select * from table where replace(title,' ','') = "first_wordsecond_word"
However the general rule of thumb is no matter what the writing conventions are. If humans are putting it in the system, there will be mistakes.
So "Hello World" vs "HelloWorld" (Slashdot cleared out my two non-breaking space) is a possible chance.
For the most part on big databases for searching I often will need to use a Levenshtein or Jaro algorithm, with normalizing white spaces. Just because human error is so common.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.