Re:   Tastes great! Less filling!

"Lee Daniel Crocker" <lcrocker@calweb.com> says:

> To sum up, there are two ways to look at &nbsp;
> 
>   1. It's just like the letter "G", but using no ink.
>   2. It's just like a space, except you can't break a line there.

All the things fitting description 1 that I've ever heard of have been
called "quad space", "em space", "en space", "thick space", or "thin
space".

If authors use "non-breaking space" in the manner it was intended to be
used--to suppress line breaks--then they won't care whether description
1 or 2 applies.  If I type 2&nbsp;Aug&nbsp;1996 do I really care whether
there is a fixed predefined width for those spaces?  Not likely.  So
it's no tragedy if browsers don't all agree.  Description 2 should
probably be acknowledged as better, but the simpler implementation
allowed by description 1 should be considered sufficient.

When authors want to space things out, they should use something else,
like &ensp; or &emsp; (as soon as such things are supported).

AMC

Received on Friday, 2 August 1996 17:58:02 UTC