Spaced out

["Alex Silbajoris" <alsilba -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

As I have been combing through some detail specification documents prepared 
by developers, I'm finding many instances of an odd behavior.  I wonder if 
anyone can cofirm a hunch I have.

The developers who populated these documents have the habit of using the 
space bar to advance the cursor to the next line, instead of hitting a hard 
return or a shift-enter combination. This puzzled me for months, but I think 
I may know why this habit seems to be so ingrained.  Some of these documents 
have system screen shot facimilies, composed in monospace type, and the 
screen shots use spaces to position text.  Perhaps these people simply use 
the same technique to compose a page of hanging-indent paragraphs made 
entirely of text and spaces, without a single return character on the page.  
(Of course, you can imagine what happens when the top paragraph is edited.)

Has anyone else seen this as a cultural tradition among developers?  Is 
there some tactful way to tell them they're keystroking like they're unaware 
the software can wrap lines?

- A



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