On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 22:01:07 +0000, Zeljko Vrba wrote: > On 2005-12-10, Tom Anderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR. >> > And: > INDENTATION > SUCKS > BIG > TIME. > > Using indentation without block termination markers is opposite of the way we > write spoken language, terminating each sentence with .
That's not true at all. We terminate sentences with punctuation because sentences can and frequently do go over multiple lines. Sentences are independent of indentation. But paragraphs are not. We terminate paragraphs with whitespace, sometimes including indentation. A very common method of terminating paragraphs in written English is to indent the first line of a new paragraph, with no vertical whitespace between them. We also terminate items in lists, sometimes without punctuation, by a new line: item one item two item three and indicate long items by a change in indentation: item one item two is an extremely long item which goes over two or more physical lines item three We sometimes indicate a block of text -- which may be one or more paragraphs -- purely with indentation: Blocks of quoted text are frequently delimited by a blank line at the top and bottom of the block, and indentation on the left margin. The indentation is necessary because the block of text may include multiple paragraphs. On the other hand, vertical white space between paragraphs is optional. It is a common convention to flag new paragraphs with an indentation, or if already indented, an extra indentation. It is even possible to have multiple levels of quoting. According to Professor Joe Expert: As a general rule, one should never indent more than two levels deep, even if this means avoiding quoting text which quotes a quotation. We also delimit larger sections of novels with whitespace. A common convention is to use an indent and no vertical space to delimit paragraphs, and three blank lines to delimit a block of text (for example, when changing the point of view character). Only if that end of block occurs at the end of the page is it replaced with punctuation, usually a series of three asterisks. So, in summary, your argument that block markers are necessary in English is wrong. Only sentences use start/end markers. Words are delimited by whitespace, paragraphs and larger blocks of text use either whitespace, indentation or both. -- Steven. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list