Jean Jordaan
2012-04-08 15:08:57 UTC
Hi there
Putting this out there for your thoughts:
By starting a new line at the end of each sentence, and splitting sentences
themselves at natural breaks between clauses, a text file becomes far
easier to edit and version control. Text editors are very good at
manipulating lines — so when each sentence is a contiguous block of lines,
your editor suddenly becomes a very powerful mechanism for quickly
rearranging clauses and ideas.
And your version-control system will love semantic linefeeds. Have you ever
changed a few words at the beginning of a paragraph, only to discover that
version control now thinks the whole text has changed?
from: http://rhodesmill.org/brandon/2012/one-sentence-per-line/
Documentation tends to be a rather personal thing, with different people used
to their own styles and the preferences of the editors that they use.
However it's also something we maintain in common, and that we version using
line-oriented tools.
As such, it would be good if we shared some understanding of how we want
things to work.
When I'm editing, I tend to re-flow very long lines to fit in 80 columns,
and I re-flow paragraphs when I've rewritten enough that most lines would
change anyway.
So I'd like to ask what your feelings would be about writing (or just reading)
short, ragged lines, and not reflowing paragraphs, for ease of editing &
versioning.
Putting this out there for your thoughts:
By starting a new line at the end of each sentence, and splitting sentences
themselves at natural breaks between clauses, a text file becomes far
easier to edit and version control. Text editors are very good at
manipulating lines — so when each sentence is a contiguous block of lines,
your editor suddenly becomes a very powerful mechanism for quickly
rearranging clauses and ideas.
And your version-control system will love semantic linefeeds. Have you ever
changed a few words at the beginning of a paragraph, only to discover that
version control now thinks the whole text has changed?
from: http://rhodesmill.org/brandon/2012/one-sentence-per-line/
Documentation tends to be a rather personal thing, with different people used
to their own styles and the preferences of the editors that they use.
However it's also something we maintain in common, and that we version using
line-oriented tools.
As such, it would be good if we shared some understanding of how we want
things to work.
When I'm editing, I tend to re-flow very long lines to fit in 80 columns,
and I re-flow paragraphs when I've rewritten enough that most lines would
change anyway.
So I'd like to ask what your feelings would be about writing (or just reading)
short, ragged lines, and not reflowing paragraphs, for ease of editing &
versioning.
--
jean . .. .... //\\\oo///\\
jean . .. .... //\\\oo///\\