I think that the issue of text editing and typesetting should be held
separate.<p>When editing a text, I am operating on a character string. In my
editor, I can jump forward and backwards over sentences. The editor
can discern these periods from others because they are followed by two
space characters.<p>When typesetting a text, it gets a proportional font, and the space
left empty between sentences is set as the typesetter wants resp. the
typesetting rules dictate.<p>Do not confuse "two space characters" of a character stream with "a
double space" of typeset text.<p>Of course, WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") editing of text
would need to be very much aware of such issues, but mostly is not. I
think that WYSIWYG editing is a bad idea, anyway.
So, most people he encounters deliberately do this, most people who don't also do this <i>think that they should be</i>, and yet he feels confident saying they're wrong. "Bold" is an understatement.<p>It's a arbitrary convention either way, as he admits. Invoking "writers, editors, typographers, and others" means very little in the context of <i>correspondence</i>, personal or otherwise.<p>I've been teaching myself Emacs and having decent success in teaching myself various shortcuts. Re-teaching myself to <i>not</i> put two spaces after a sentence in prose? <i>Ha.</i>
The hugely important point, completely overlooked by the article, is: is the text in monospace or not? If it's monospace, two spaces typically looks better. That's why old-fashioned typewriter people use two spaces.<p>If it's typeset, the number of spaces really should be taken care of by the justification system (as in TeX) and the point of the article is moot.<p>Aside, this is the article at which I vowed to no longer read Manjoo. The S/N is too low.