colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) (11/22/85)
[.hw hyp-hen] > There is NO *real* reason to hyphenate words to split them across lines; > it is merely a convention, established over hundreds of years by the > printing establishment. We have a chance here to overcome this hidebound > and annoying custom, and establish instead either variable spacing for > justified right margins, or, better yet, settle on irregular right > margins as the new standard. This view is rather naive. Right margins are justified to make the text easier to read, and centuries of experience have vindicated the practice. -- Col. G. L. Sicherman UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel CS: colonel@buffalo-cs BI: csdsicher@sunyabva
larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) (11/22/85)
> > There is NO *real* reason to hyphenate words to split them across lines; > > it is merely a convention, established over hundreds of years by the > > printing establishment. We have a chance here to overcome this hidebound > > and annoying custom, and establish instead either variable spacing for > > justified right margins, or, better yet, settle on irregular right > > margins as the new standard. > > This view is rather naive. Right margins are justified to make the text > easier to read, and centuries of experience have vindicated the practice. My personal experience is that I agree that justified right margins are easier to read. HOWEVER, several people I know - one being a documentation expert at AT&T Technologies and another being a newspaper editor claim that recent studies indicate that a non-justified right margin (``ragged right'') is easier to read. I would be interested in seeing opinions on this matter. === Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York === === UUCP {decvax,dual,rocksanne,rocksvax,watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry === === VOICE 716/741-9185 {rice,shell}!baylor!/ === === FAX 716/741-9635 {AT&T 3510D} ihnp4!/ === === === === "Have you hugged your cat today?" ===
esa@kvvax4.UUCP (Esa K Viitala) (11/25/85)
In article <> colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) writes: > >> There is NO *real* reason to hyphenate words to split them across lines; >This view is rather naive. Right margins are justified to make the text >easier to read, and centuries of experience have vindicated the practice. I thought that right margins were justified to make documents prettier. To easier read text, one should leave the right margin unjustified, this will help the eye to perform a "carriage return". But I still agree to your comment about not hyphenating words. -- ---ekv, {seismo,okstate,garfield,decvax,philabs}!mcvax!kvvax4!esa
ado@elsie.UUCP (Arthur David Olson) (11/25/85)
> This view is rather naive. Right margins are justified to make the text > easier to read, and centuries of experience have vindicated the practice. If that's true, I wonder why the above text was left ragged. :-) -- UUCP: ..decvax!seismo!elsie!ado ARPA: elsie!ado@seismo.ARPA DEC, VAX and Elsie are Digital Equipment and Borden trademarks
laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton) (11/25/85)
In article <2539@sunybcs.UUCP> colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) writes: >Right margins are justified to make the text >easier to read, and centuries of experience have vindicated the practice. Every single print shop I have ever been in or worked for has had several raging arguments which appear to date back to Geutenburg. (Well perhaps not that far, but for decades at least.) One of them is ``does hyphenation make text easier to read -- when does it -- when doesn't it''. It is one of the publishing equivalents to ``is it possible to prove the literal truth of the Bible'' and ``what is the perfect paging algorithm''. A significant number of people find right justified text easier to read. A significant number of people find right justified text harder to read. A significant number of people find helvetica easier to read then roman. A significant number of people find roman easer to read than helvetica. A significant number of people find that *whatever is the font of their local newspaper* is the easiest to read. It is a strange business. It is possible to make all sorts of logical arguments for why one font (say roman) is easier to read than another (say helvetica). While these are great things for people who are designing fornts to rememeber, there always seems to be a significant number of people who behave quite oppositely to what you would expect. -- Laura Creighton sun!l5!laura (that is ell-five, not fifteen) l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa
dww@stl.UUCP (David Wright) (11/26/85)
>> > There is NO *real* reason to hyphenate words to split them across lines; >> > ... We have a chance here to overcome this hidebound ... custom ... >> >> This view is rather naive. Right margins are justified to make the text >> easier to read, and centuries of experience have vindicated the practice. Don't you realise that discussion of whether right hand justification is good or bad is irrelevant in designing systems for widespread use? Some users think 'full' justification essential (and when using narrow columns will require hyphenation to make it look reasonable), whereas others will think the opposite and require ragged right justification. (Personally I think it depends what type of document is being set). So as a key criteria for good system design is meeting the user's requirements, you have to offer all standard forms of justification, and at least some form of hyphenation (Knuth's TeX does pretty well so why can't you?) It doesn't matter if YOU don't think the user ought to justify: if he/she doesn't agree with you he/she will go elsewhere.
emjej@uokvax.UUCP (11/29/85)
/* Written 9:04 am Nov 25, 1985 by ado@elsie.UUCP in net.internat */ > This view is rather naive. Right margins are justified to make the text > easier to read, and centuries of experience have vindicated the practice. If that's true, I wonder why the above text was left ragged. :-) /* End of text from net.internat */ Because the author didn't have the facilities (i.e. proportional spacing and the ability to insert arbitrary-width space between characters) to support justification. If printers were stuck with fixed-width fonts, I bet they'd use ragged right margins, too. James Jones
overlord@nmtvax.UUCP (12/01/85)
> My personal experience is that I agree that justified right margins >are easier to read. HOWEVER, several people I know - one being a documentation >expert at AT&T Technologies and another being a newspaper editor claim that >recent studies indicate that a non-justified right margin (``ragged right'') >is easier to read. > I would be interested in seeing opinions on this matter. I have always found "ragged right" margins MUCH easier to read. I think that it looks better too. I have trouble reading lines that have had MANY extra spaces thrown in to "justify it". for example: words and more words of varing length to show you what I mean and then there will be lots of spaces due to a BigJargonWordThatDidNotFit on the previous line which make it look bad and slightly unreadable etc., etc..... I will probably always prefer ragged right and no hyphenation. Alan Kerr New Mexico Tech -- ...{convex,ucbvax,gatech,csu-cs,anl-mcs}!unmvax!nmtvax!overlord ...{purdue,cmc12}!lanl!nmtvax!overlord
inc@fluke.UUCP (Gary Benson) (12/02/85)
> > This view is rather naive. Right margins are justified to make the text > > easier to read, and centuries of experience have vindicated the practice. > > If that's true, I wonder why the above text was left ragged. :-) It wasn't. It was left justified, but right ragged. The view [down with hyphens] is not at all naive. Centuries of experience have given us centuries of colonels who think that everything that's all nicely lined up is "better". -- Gary Benson * John Fluke Mfg. Co. * PO Box C9090 * Everett WA * 98206 MS/232-E = = {allegra} {uw-beaver} !fluke!inc = = (206)356-5367 _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-ascii is our god and unix is his profit-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold%CGL) (12/05/85)
In article <889@nmtvax.UUCP> overlord@nmtvax.UUCP (Alan Kerr) writes: >I have always found "ragged right" margins MUCH easier to read. I think >that it looks better too. I have trouble reading lines that have had MANY >extra spaces thrown in to "justify it". > >for example: > >words and more words of varing length to show you what I mean and >then there will be lots of spaces due to a >BigJargonWordThatDidNotFit on the previous line which make it look >bad and slightly unreadable etc., etc..... That's funny. I find that more readable than radically different line lengths because of unhyphenated words. To coin an example: words and more words of varing length to show you what I mean and then there will be lots of spaces due to a BigJargonWordThatDidNotFit on the previous line which make it look bad and slightly unreadable etc., etc..... My eyes don't scan this as easily because they have to go radically different distances on different lines. Of course, if you drop your anti-hyphenation, you can say words and more words of varing length to show you what I mean and then there will be lots of spaces due to a BigJargonWordThatDid- NotFit on the previous line which make it look bad and slightly unreadable etc., etc..... and still have ragged right margins since the changes won't be so radical. Me, I prefer hyphenation and justification, but it is really all a matter of taste. Since nobody will every truly convince anyone else, maybe we can just let this discussion fade? Me, I'm fading right now...... . . . . . . Ken Arnold
tim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith) (12/12/85)
What one can do is try to rephrase or rearrange things so that the text lines up on the right without having to put in any extra spaces. Then you don't have large spaces in the sentence, but you still have things aligned. It does take practice to do this on the fly, and it might be hard to write software to rearrange text automatically without changing the meaning, but hey, that's what AI is for! -- Tim Smith sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim || ima!ism780!tim || ihnp4!cithep!tim
colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) (12/17/85)
> The view [down with hyphens] is not at all naive. Centuries of experience > have given us centuries of colonels who think that everything that's all > nicely lined up is "better". Actually, I prefer ragged right for constant-width fonts, like typewriter output and ASCII. (But I still hyphenate it! There's such a thing as being too ragged.) :: "Please do not play this piece fast! Ragtime should NEVER be played fast." -- Col. G. L. Sicherman UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel CS: colonel@buffalo-cs BI: csdsicher@sunyabva