You will see a noticeable uptick in engagement with your comments on this website if you add newlines for emphasis, clarity, and readability. You don't necessarily need to put them between every sentence. There is a bit of finesse involved.
That being said, the comment is so excellent and information dense that it largely escapes this potential pitfall.
Twice
Being able to read large chunks of text with minimal or no formatting is useful, but so is knowing how to format the text you produce so it's easier for people to consume. We should all strive to be capable of both.
Do you write code this way?
That's a very strange argument - would you apply it to coding too? Perhaps remove comments so people are forced to interpret the code alone.
Also I'm not against proper formatting of posts. Just if it's not separated in paragraphs readers should so the small effort of doing it mentally, instead of complaining. Similarly I'm not against code comments (but strongly in favour).
Btw I replied for the sake of argumenting but the two things are not comparable. Just so this test: splitting text written by others in paragraphs is a very easy task you can do just reading the text one time. Commiting code you don't yet understand is impossible: many informations you should write are not implicitly in the code. It's the contrary actually: most good comments are about things that are not evident.
I still don't agree with your point fundamentally, but I appreciate your work immensely, and that is far more important.
Gatekeeping perhaps? Surely that's not the argument that you're making.
Literacy needs to be handled in primary and secondary school.
Redis is an excellent codebase and an extremely useful piece of software. I am a very grateful user.
I'm just mystified by the idea that functions, modules, and paragraphs are not only useful, but expected, while newlines in HN comments are not.
The best answer I can come up with is that internet etiquette and formatting is constantly evolving. If that's the case, I don't see the issue with suggesting a formatting that might be more effective or accessible.
Neither do I, as I'm up-thread with the same point. I just thought it was sort of funny. :)
1) higher resolution (printed letters are better seen by the eye than the average letter on a screen)
2) narrower lines (easier to spot the next line)
3) at least a bit more spacing between lines
Finally, when the topic is not fiction, but stuff that requires a lot of attention to digest, perhaps paragraphs and newlines can improve the reading experience.
p.s. you probably meant offense with an "s" (I used to do the same typo, and we're both Italians)
Though anyone reading using a wide browser window on a desktop will be facing long lines; don't blame the big paragraph for poor readability due to line length.
I think that's a poor example - Moby Dick isn't exactly praised for ease of casual reading (and internet comments should definitely fall in the category of casual reading. Relative ease is a choice, and the parent comment was just suggesting that the other comment would find wider reach if it were easier to parse)
> I'm with Antirez here: dumb Americans who can't read and all that
Oh
DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was—but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium—the bitter lapse into every-day life—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.
Isn't it much easier to make an easy neutral change to your writing that will be positive for some readers than to assert their culture should learn to read better?
Have you considered using newlines or breaks?
You probably have amazing ideas and more people would read them if it was easier to read
(my 2c)