ANN: Dao Language v.0.9.6-beta is release!

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 22:01:07 +0000, Zeljko Vrba wrote:

> On 2005-12-10, Tom Anderson <twic at urchin.earth.li> 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.