Semantic Line Breaks (2017)
sembr.org97 points by Bogdanp 6 days ago
97 points by Bogdanp 6 days ago
> Without any line breaks at all, this paragraph appears in source as a long, continuous line of text
Of course it doesn't because
> (which may be automatically wrapped at a fixed column length, depending on your editor settings):
Indeed, are you short on apps that support this ancient text formatting feature?
> Adding a line break after each sentence makes it easier to understand the shape and structure of the source text
Nope again, visually you've just wasted my devices width or overestimated my smartphone's width and I get exactly the same issue you've just complained about: a single sentence that doesn't fit.
Semantically, what you're looking for already exists and is called a paragraph. A sentence has a different meaning, which you break by line breaking after every single one. It kills the structure, not "makes it easier to understand the shape and structure of the source text" (also, bullet points exist)
PS By the way, why deprive readers of extra clarity offered by this formatting?
> We can further clarify the source text by adding a line break after the clause “with reason and conscience”. This helps to distinguish between the “and” used as a coordinating conjunction between “reason and conscience” and the “and” used as a subordinating conjunction with the clause
I think you might be misunderstanding. The semantic line breaks described here are not shown to readers. They are visible only to the person writing/editing the text, as a tool for their own use. If you aren't someone who finds a tool like this useful for your own writing, then no worries! Nobody has been harmed by this existing but not being used. It has no effect on the result.
While I never knew there was a name for this, I naturally do something very similar when writing, keeping thoughts separated by at least a line or two, even if I imagine they'll be in the same paragraph in the end result, just so I have a visual sense of where my different thoughts are and how long they are.
GP brought the point up that addresses this: "why deprive readers of extra clarity offered by this formatting?"
So if this is something that's valuable when reading or editing material, why not extend that to the final, rendered output?
To me, this smells of micro-optimization that's not well thought through: where are the boundaries between being able to edit vs being able to read? If we make every word be on a line by itself, you can use remove-line command in your editor, and diffs will automatically become word-diffs, and it would encourage writers to limit sentences to clearer sentences by fitting them into one ~50 line/word screen. By using double newlines, you can still keep "semantic" newlines too. Wouldn't that be appealing? "No" is what I would say.
I’ve always done similar. My initial writing is a disconnected jumble of sentence parts, sentences, more fleshed out paragraphs, etc just to get ideas out and they later get organized into something cohesive.
> are not shown to readers.
Sure they are, though the spec hides some readers behind other names like "editors, and other collaborators"
But also, have you never read the plain text / source of some markdown/other markup language written by someone else? Readme.md in its raw form?
And the spec explicitly applies to plain text, so it's self-contradictory as "the final rendered output" of plain text is... itself.
I like your extension of the term “readers” but I don’t think that’s the intended use for this matter. And if it were, would it be safe to assume that editors and other collaborators would consent to this standard?
> But also, have you never read the plain text / source of some markdown/other markup language written by someone else? Readme.md in its raw form?
That’s beside the point because the spec states "A semantic line break must not alter the final rendered output of the document.”
And I think you’re misinterpreting what “plain text” refers to here. Not .txt files exclusively, but the markup languages mentioned as well that are...plain text. The final rendered output of these kind of documents are not themselves.
The expectation is that the source of whatever flavor of plain text is not the final output.
If this practice offends you, don’t use it. This is a specification suggesting a practice for you* to use.
How have you been able to manage with hard-wrapped text elsewhere?
> And if it were, would it be safe to assume that editors and other collaborators would consent to this standard?
Easy no, only some of them in some instances. There is no uniformity at such a scale / variety of collaboration.
> That’s beside the point because the spec states
It's not, and I've addressed this in the very next semantic line! And you've also ignored the very point in your quoted line as well. Editing "Readme.md in its raw form" with the extra line breaks is still bad regardless of the final rendered output.
> Not .txt files exclusively
I don't need exclusivity, complementarity still works. And again, final output doesn't save you
> If this practice offends you, don’t use it.
If the criticism offends you, practice in the shadows and don't publish the raw misformatted specs/docs!
> How have you been able to manage with hard-wrapped text elsewhere?
Sometimes by batch-replacing those extra newlines in a text editor, sometiems by abandoning reading because the text reflow is too broken, sometimes just by plowing through while cursing the cavemen that force their habits onto the readers with different devices.
Your aversion appears
to be psychological.
It seems to me like
you have trouble examining
things by the sum of
their parts and
semantic line breaks
agitate this.
You’re free to
the render “misformatted”
text in the format that it’s
intended to be viewed.
And I take it that
physical literature
is a burden for you
to bear.
My condolences.I imagine this type of formatting caused you to sneak in a typo or two like "free to the render" — if you had it as a free-flowing sentence, it'd be easier to catch.
The point is that if these formatting snippets are useful for reading, we should extend this to all the readers too. If they are not, we should be mindful not to micro-optimize lest we confuse others and ourselves.
I actually I'm somewhat torn on this.
In my blog, I do this in my poems, such as: https://alejo.ch/39l — I don't expect this to be controversial, makes sense for poems, right?
However, I'm also experimenting with rendering my prose with the same type of breaks, like https://alejo.ch/3gb or https://alejo.ch/3g9
My guess, reading this thread, is that most people would tell me that they find the breaks annoying and would rather read my prose without the breaks? Hmm. Would love to hear some feedback.
It's pretty annoying on a phone screen where there are additional line breaks: I actually lose the flow when I need to skip lines.
Maybe it'll be better on a larger screen, but due to more frequent line breaks, I would advise you to use a serif font.
I’m clearly biased. But I enjoyed the format and it's risk like this that make me more likely to read the content where under different circumstance I may not even care about your professional experiences. The smaller font size mitigates any issues due to the line breaks because I can still see all the text.
Although I can get how someone else would feel that the text is too small and if the size was a conscious decision on your part to accommodate the line breaks they would hold you to blame further.
I think you’ve got a nice personal website overall. Even down to the drafts that lead to 404 errors; a nice touch even if unintentional.
Everybody wants personality to return to the Web again until they’ve got to deal with personalities.
You win some, you lose some.