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From: mat@hou5d.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: Readability
Message-ID: <790@hou5d.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Jan-84 22:53:01 EST
Article-I.D.: hou5d.790
Posted: Fri Jan 20 22:53:01 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Jan-84 22:23:40 EST
References: <2298@fortune.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 41


>	Don't some of you people know what W H I T E S P A C E is?
>
>	How about breaking up some of the long paragraphs?  How  about
>	evening  up some of those right margins?
>
>		A tab or return is only one character.  Will  you  really
>		begrudge your reader a little less eyestrain as the cost of
>		more machine and storage efficiency?  It's no longer true that
>		machine time or  most costly than that of human beings?
>
>	This memo is written with the Rand  editor  and  so  has  a  built-in
>	text justification  feature.  If  you  are  using  this  program  put
>	the cursor somewhere in a paragraph and type:

Yup.  I know what whitespace is.  I also know that there are only 24 lines on
most screens, and I'll be damned if I am going to write off the first 10 % of
each line so that you can see more empty screen.  And I DON'T LIKE margins that
are justified by adding arbitrary numbers of fixed-width spaces.  I especially
don't like same when the spacing is badly done, as it was in your article.
I can FEEL the flames on that last statement, but I let it stand.


What bugs me is the article that is written and not proofread for sensibility.
Articles that go to no point, or that start at a point and go everywhichway
are irritating to read.  They make you suspect that the author has SOMETHING
to say, but isn't willing to take the time to make it clear for you.  Or
perhaps hasn't figured it out for himself.  Perhaps it's not worth his
time, but is is worth ours, or he wouldn't post it.

Here is a second pet peeve:  the individuals who insist that what they have
to say is so important that they can't bother to use a shift key when typing.
I know a blind author of net articles who reads his terminal with a voice
synthesizer.  Capitalization is useless to him, but his articles are perfectly
capitalized for the benefit of his readers.  We use almost every conceivable
cue in reading; capitalization is an important cue.  Don't cut out half your
voice before speaking to us!


						Mark Terribile
						hou5d!mat