Subject: [xml2rfc] periodspace keyword?

From: Glen Zorn <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:30:16 +0700

I'm wondering if it would be possible to add a "periodspace" PI keyword 
so that XML like this

<xref target="RFC3550">Schulzrinne, et al.</xref> lists using multiple 
clock rates

produces text like this

    Schulzrinne, et al. [RFC3550] lists using multiple clock rates

rather than text like this

    Schulzrinne, et al.  [RFC3550] lists using multiple clock rates

(note extraneous space between "et al." and " [RFC3550]".  Should be a 
straightforward clone of the colonspace keyword...

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From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 23 Apr 2012 04:42:46 -0000

>    Schulzrinne, et al.  [RFC3550] lists using multiple clock rates

It'd be better to fix it so it never double spaces after a period.
Read all about it:

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/01/space_invaders.html

R's,
John

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From: Glen Zorn <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:51:37 +0700

> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/01/space_invaders.html

 From the article:

The problem with typewriters was that they used monospaced type—that is, 
every character occupied an equal amount of horizontal space. This 
bucked a long tradition of proportional typesetting, in which skinny 
characters (like I or 1) were given less space than fat ones (like W or 
M). Monospaced type gives you text that looks "loose" and uneven; 
there's a lot of white space between characters and words, so it's more 
difficult to spot the spaces between sentences immediately. Hence the 
adoption of the two-space rule—on a typewriter, an extra space after a 
sentence makes text easier to read. Here's the thing, though: Monospaced 
fonts went out in the 1970s. First electric typewriters and then 
computers began to offer people ways to create text using proportional 
fonts. Today nearly every font on your PC is proportional. (Courier is 
the one major exception.) Because we've all switched to modern fonts, 
adding two spaces after a period no longer enhances readability, 
typographers say. It diminishes it.

The text versions of I-Ds & RFCs are, I believe, published in a 
monospaced font so this argument does not seem really relevant for us at 
present.

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From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:14:14 -0500

On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Glen Zorn <[email-masked]> wrote:
> From the article:
>
> [...]
>
> The text versions of I-Ds & RFCs are, I believe, published in a monospaced
> font so this argument does not seem really relevant for us at present.

Indeed,I like the double space after sentence ending periods in
fixed-width fonts.  But I think this should be done by the
author/editor, with double spaces reduced to single spaces when
rendering HTML/PDF/... in non-fixed-width fonts.  Then the OP's
proposal would be moot, which would be a good thing too given that
<periodspace/> is a lot to type and obnoxious to read when all one
wants is a single space following a period!

Nico
--

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From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:57:17 -0700

Nico Williams <[email-masked]> writes:

> Indeed, I like the double space after sentence ending periods in
> rendering HTML/PDF/... in non-fixed-width fonts.  Then the OP's proposal
> would be moot,

Something still has to decide how many spaces to use after a period when
the period was at the end of a line and the paragraph has been refilled so
that it no longer is.

-- 
Russ Allbery ([email-masked])             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:06:52 +0200

> straightforward clone of the colonspace keyword...

...another discussion we wouldn't have if we didn't insist on this funny 
format.

As a workaround you may want to try "&nbsp;".

Best regards, Julian

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From: Glen Zorn <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:52:09 +0700

On 04/23/2012 01:06 PM, Julian Reschke wrote:
> ...another discussion we wouldn't have if we didn't insist on this 
> funny format.
>

Yes, that works, but only like this

Schulzrinne, et al.&nbsp;<xref target="RFC3550"/>

I guess I'll live ;-).  Thanks!

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From: Joe Abley <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:56:16 -0400

> Schulzrinne, et al.&nbsp;<xref target="RFC3550"/>

What about this:

  <xref target="RFC3550">Schulzrinne, et al.</xref>

Joe

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From: Bill Atwood <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:01:00 -0400

LaTeX recognizes end-of-sentence for a variety of characters, period
being one of them.  It has an "escape" sequence for overriding this
recognition---one writes ".\ " to ensure a single space (i.e., to defeat
the end-of-sentence recognition, instead of ". "

In the XML case, "&nbsp;" can serve the same purpose; if you don't
like/want the double space after a period, you can override it, as Glen
wrote.  This is a general solution to the problem.

In the case of a citation, I actually prefer Joe's solution---citations
_should_ be tightly coupled to the previous word.

  Bill Atwood

On 4/23/2012 9:56 AM, Joe Abley wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> xml2rfc mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/xml2rfc

-- 

Dr. J.W. Atwood, Eng.             tel:   +1 (514) 848-2424 x3046
Distinguished Professor Emeritus  fax:   +1 (514) 848-2830
Department of Computer Science
   and Software Engineering
Concordia University EV 3.185     email:[email-masked]
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West    http://users.encs.concordia.ca/~bill
Montreal, Quebec Canada H3G 1M8

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From: Glen Zorn <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:10:07 +0700

> _should_ be tightly coupled to the previous word.

Actually, that was what prompted the original question:

"<xref target="RFC3550">Schulzrinne, et al.</xref>"

results in "Schulzrinne, et al.  [RFC3550]", as do

"<xref target="RFC3550">Schulzrinne, et al.&nbsp;</xref>",

"Schulzrinne, et al.<xref target="RFC3550"/>"

and

"Schulzrinne, et al.<xref target="RFC3550"/>".