No offence, but I would rather suggest improving your reading skills. Books don't have newlines or spacing, mostly: do you have issues reading a novel as well? That would be a major problem. But I bet you don't have any issues reading books, because this demand of spacing is a lot stronger among US readers and I bet is mostly cultural rather than a real issue.
Books have paragraphs, which are newlines and indentations, specifically to help people read in the face of what would otherwise be a wall of text.
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.
Most books paragraphs are larger than an HN comment without spacing. Since the ability to read books is crucial, it is better to exercise the skill of reading text without spacing than asking commenters to add them.
Books have an incentive to minimize whitespace, as it costs money (paper). Computer screens don't have this limitation so the cost: benefit calculation is different.
What I mean is that book length content has paragraphs longer than single not spaced comments. Thus it is very odd that readers have issues with one but not with the other. Moreover making it too simple to parse comments and social network posts, creates users that struggle to read more complex content: as a society we don't want that.
In this case it's like if there were centuries of already written code with huge value, all written without comments. You don't want to limit the ability of programmers to read it. However things are very different in their dynamics: reading text without well separated paragraphs is mostly a matter of habit: a simple skill to achieve, so discouraging this ability has very little return. Lack of comments make reading code a lot harder in certain cases, especially since many informations in the comments are non local.
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.
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.
I see your point. However, books have a few advantages that allow reading them with less issues:
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)
I just picked a book at random: Moby Dick, by Herman Melville. First thing that popped into my head. Scanning through the first chapter (thanks to Project Gutenberg) I easily found a paragraph that looks larger than the discussed comment, starting with "Lord save me, thinks I". Indeed has 520 words, which is almost twice the comment's 277. I'm with Antirez here: dumb Americans who can't read and all that.
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 just picked a book at random: Moby Dick, by Herman Melville.
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
I seem to have no trouble finding big paragraphs. Opening one from "Fall of the House of Usher" by E. A. Poe. 389 words.
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.
Cultural issues are as real as any other issues...
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?
Following your reasoning we should all do efforts to translate all the documentation of all the software available in many languages, a major amount of work, instead of asking developers to learn English. And learning English is a major undertake compared to read comments without spacing.
