Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to The New Coffee Room. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 3
One Space, or Two?; Which is proper?
Topic Started: Jan 19 2011, 09:31 AM (1,009 Views)
Axtremus
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
KlavierBauer
Jan 19 2011, 02:47 PM
software cost creeps down?

Software cost is hourly, and as functionality increases, so do man hours.
Write once, copy a gazzilion times and run everywhere. That makes software cheaper.

Reuse and build upon debugged and time-tested libraries and code base. That makes software cheaper.

R&D of software takes man hours, that's true. But duplication, distribution, and reuse of software do not. That makes software cost creeps down.

If every accountant who wants to use software to do accounting has to build his own accounting software, sure, that will be expensive. But now the small businesses and accountants who serve small businesses just use QuickBooks. The # of CPA hours billed goes down dramatically. All the software development effort is concentrated in Intuit. Each small business and accountant pays $200 bucks to Intuit every 2~3 years to "upgrade" their QuickBooks software. Now one accountant can serve many more small businesses, and many small businesses can get by with a lot fewer accounting hours. A CPA bills around $200 an hour -- reducing one CPA hour is enough to pay for one QuickBooks upgrade.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Axtremus
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
JBryan
Jan 20 2011, 07:55 AM
Axtremus
Jan 19 2011, 10:27 AM
Aqua Letifer
Jan 19 2011, 10:23 AM
You write a manuscript more than 20 pages in length and I guaran-damn-tee you'll miss more than a couple. And inconsistency's a graver sin than poor formatting.
That's why you want the computer to apply a set of rules, consistently and completely, across the whole document for you.
Come on, Ax. You started out making it sound pretty darned easy.
Post #5 in this thread is where I started.
Where did I say what you claim I said?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JBryan
Member Avatar
I am the grey one
Okay, Gregory Hines, we'll just leave it at that.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Axtremus
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
JBryan
Jan 20 2011, 07:55 AM
Axtremus
Jan 19 2011, 10:27 AM
Aqua Letifer
Jan 19 2011, 10:23 AM
You write a manuscript more than 20 pages in length and I guaran-damn-tee you'll miss more than a couple. And inconsistency's a graver sin than poor formatting.
That's why you want the computer to apply a set of rules, consistently and completely, across the whole document for you.
Come on, Ax. You started out making it sound pretty darned easy.
Now addressing your reading of my post that you quoted ...

Again, reading comprehension FAIL right there.

I said computer is better at maintaining consistency than human, and that one should want to use a computer to achieve that consistency.

I didn't say anything about it being easy or hard. You're reading into it things that are not there.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JBryan
Member Avatar
I am the grey one
I am not failing to comprehend anything. If you had started out saying that software could not accomplish this feat now but some day it will reach a level of sophistacation where it might you may have a leg to stand on. You did anything but, however, and pretty much made it sound like a dawdle so dancing on no legs will not be any easier than standing on one leg.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Axtremus
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
Oh, I have very clearly pointed out an instance where your reading comprehension failed. Heck, you even failed to identify where I started. :lol:
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JBryan
Member Avatar
I am the grey one
Ooookay...
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
KlavierBauer
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
Sorry - my last comment was directed towards Ax, not you jb.
"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper
"He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
RosemaryTwo
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
jon-nyc
Jan 19 2011, 05:35 PM
Apparently TNCR space is pretty cheap, huh Rosemary. :)
Not only is it cheap, but a bet a majority of its readers skip over paragraphs that are more than a few short sentences long.

And I did not make that up. But I bet you'll agree with it.
"Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
KlavierBauer
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
I see no reading comprehension FAIL, just a contextual reference FAIL.

As: software reusability is inherent in object oriented, and "best practice" software design. Its benefit to fixed cost is realized once - it is not a "creeping" benefit, but one that is largely already realized, as software either is, or isn't reusable. It doesn't become *more* reusable, and therefore doesn't cause costs to creep down. Furthermore, I've already admitted that it drives costs down at the onset, but isn't a net-gain when other factors are factored in.
The main limitation still remains though - and it's what jbryan has been hinting at - consistency is still (even in software) wholly dependent on humans. If humans have no set of standards for punctuation and spacing, then no piece of software can be consistent either.
Consider then, the vast number of text editors used by the average web user in a day, and you've got many pieces of software (each of which will have to address this problem, either by implementing known libraries, or writing new ones) vying to be the "standard," potentially each in a different way.
"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper
"He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JBryan
Member Avatar
I am the grey one
KlavierBauer
Jan 20 2011, 10:30 AM
Sorry - my last comment was directed towards Ax, not you jb.
I know. It was a joke about my ability to comprehend.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
RosemaryTwo
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
JBryan
Jan 20 2011, 10:40 AM
KlavierBauer
Jan 20 2011, 10:30 AM
Sorry - my last comment was directed towards Ax, not you jb.
I know. It was a joke about my ability to comprehend.
I got it.

After I read it a few times. :whome:
"Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ivorythumper
Member Avatar
I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Ballyhoo
Jan 19 2011, 10:10 PM
Axtremus
Jan 19 2011, 12:33 PM
LaTex FTW!
:thumb:
Are you guys into some sort of fetish??? :eek:
The dogma lives loudly within me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ivorythumper
Member Avatar
I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Aqua Letifer
Jan 19 2011, 10:23 AM
And inconsistency's a graver sin than poor formatting.
I gotta wonder about using the apostrophe as a contraction with a noun that is not a personal noun... it seems clumsy.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JBryan
Member Avatar
I am the grey one
Perhaps Ax could write us some software to sort it out.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
This whole discussion is an interesting example of something I notice again and again.
Some stuff is absolute.
Other stuff is made up and agreed with, but treated as if it was absolute.

2+2 equalling 4 is absolute.
The "proper" way of doing things is merely agreement, yet people can get REALLY overly passionate about what's proper or right.

Based on the link, the 2-space rule was a solution to a problem; it was hard to see the separation between sentences.
Old fashioned typewriters gave equal space to every letter, so thin letters like i or l had more space around them.
This meant that one space between sentences was not enough of a visual clue of sentence separation.
Hence the 2-space rule.

Today, typewriters are history.
What we use now bunches letters together in a more thoughtful way instead of giving each letter equal space.
The need for a 2-space sentence separator died with the typewriter, but old habits die hard.

We are are living in a transition stage where one agreement is being displaced by another.
I believe it will take a generation or two for the new agreement to approach 100% buy in.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
KlavierBauer
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
Kenny - dig in deep enough, and either everything's absolute, or nothing is.

2+2 doesn't always equal four (seriously) - so it isn't an absolute. Only in ratio and interval scales does 2 + 2 = 4. In nominal and ordinal scales, this isn't necessarily true.

Similarly, parallell lines are defined as two lines that don't intersect - yet in non-euclidian space, parallell lines can indeed intersect - so again, something thought of as "absolute" isn't.

The amount of mass in the Universe is an absolute - but our measurement of what that must be keeps shifting around, and we have more and more "made up" terms to arrive at what we've decided the absolute must be.

In essence, there is no absolute, only our perception of what must, and must not be absolute.

Edited by KlavierBauer, Jan 20 2011, 11:17 AM.
"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper
"He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ballyhoo
Middle Aged Carp
ivorythumper
Jan 20 2011, 10:55 AM
Ballyhoo
Jan 19 2011, 10:10 PM
Axtremus
Jan 19 2011, 12:33 PM
LaTex FTW!
:thumb:
Are you guys into some sort of fetish??? :eek:
Words cannot express how much I love it.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Horace
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
Ballyhoo
Jan 20 2011, 10:03 PM
ivorythumper
Jan 20 2011, 10:55 AM
Ballyhoo
Jan 19 2011, 10:10 PM
Axtremus
Jan 19 2011, 12:33 PM
LaTex FTW!
:thumb:
Are you guys into some sort of fetish??? :eek:
Words cannot express how much I love it.
But Word can, since it's so much better than LaTex. :P
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Horace
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
If this one space vs two thing wasn't on its way to being decisively in one space's favor, I am sure Twitter will make it so.

Just another reason to love Twitter. :hearts:

Down with walls of text! :veryangry:
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Create your own social network with a free forum.
« Previous Topic · The New Coffee Room · Next Topic »
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 3