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Comment by hprotagonist | Hacker News Reader

The true answer, as far as i can tell:

- monospace font: two spaces.

- proportional font: “space” is a lie, let your typesetter figure it out.

LaTeX forces option two: white space between sentences is completely ignored in a paragraph block when the document is rendered. (and thus should be two spaces since most people edit latex in a monospace font).

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When I learned to type, I learned the two space convention. Some years ago, while working together on a paper draft a friend of mine hooted and laughed at my antediluvian practice. When he was done, I explained that the paper was destined for LaTeX, and that any amount of space would be collapsed into Knuth Standard Spacing.

The joke was on my friend in the end, as I convinced him to learn LaTeX, which is the most useful cruelty one can inflict on someone else.

Normally, TeX uses a space and a third between sentences. But it's actually more complicated than that, because the amount of space can be stretched or shrunk to achieve text justification. More details are at: https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/4726

I tend to use new lines between my sentences in LaTeX. It makes it easier for me to do editing.

Two new lines between paragraphs.

Another benefit of your approach is that it plays very well with revision control.

How is it better than using one or more spaces between sentences?

line diffs are easier to think about, i suppose.

I edit code and latex in proportional fonts. When writing latex, I usually line break my sentences.

ack. how do you get your brackets to line up?

I don’t worry about that. ASCII art in code isn’t very satisfying anyways.

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