Third Way
Third Way
[To the left a group with three Cueballs, a Ponytail and Megan at the front which face another group with two Cueballs, a Ponytail and a black haired ponytail at the front. Each group has a placard. A Cueball in the left group has a cutlass and a Cueball in the right group has a spear as they are angrily facing off against each other. Off to the far right side stands a lone Cueball also with a placard.] Left placard: Two spaces after a period Middle placard: One space after a period Right placard: Line break after every sentence

This comic refers to the debate occurring in the United States about the correct number of space characters after a period at the end of a sentence .
While typewriter typists in the United States were traditionally taught to use two spaces between sentences, this is becoming less common and many sources now recommend having only one space, although this topic is still controversial .
Cueball is advocating a line break after every sentence, the eponymous "third way".
This obviates the problem, as a period will always appear at the end of a line and the spacing after it becomes moot.
A line break after every sentence is sometimes called " semantic linefeeds ".
This is particularly useful when plain text files based on a markup language (such as HTML , TeX , or Wiki markup ) are edited by multiple people using a version control system where it helps to facilitate comparison of changes and avoid merge conflicts.
In most markup languages, a single line feed in the source is rendered as a simple space, while two linefeeds generate a paragraph break.
This approach allows the source to be easily manipulated and versioned, while the rendered output still keeps the regular flow and justification abilities of running text.
(Incidentally, HTML and languages derived from it such as BBCode and Wiki markup will generally render multiple consecutive whitespace characters as a single space, so pretty much every page on the Internet uses single spacing whether the author wants to or not.)
The title text uses single spaces between the back-and-forth quotations; but within each quotation, the quoted speaker's preferred spacing is used; when the single-spacing advocate claims to be using double spacing, this is indeed a lie.
However, realistically, it is implausible that one can hear whitespace. [ citation needed ]
Randall's mocking characterization in the title text of overzealous advocates using the phrase "WAKE UP, SHEEPLE" has appeared in previous comics: 496: Secretary: Part 3 and 1013: Wake Up Sheeple .
Note that this is not the first time Randall has proposed a controversial third way , and this debate is later referenced in 1989: IMHO .
Sentence spacing was previously mentioned in the title text of 1070: Words for Small Sets .
[To the left a group with three Cueballs, a Ponytail and Megan at the front which face another group with two Cueballs, a Ponytail and a black haired ponytail at the front. Each group has a placard. A Cueball in the left group has a cutlass and a Cueball in the right group has a spear as they are angrily facing off against each other. Off to the far right side stands a lone Cueball also with a placard.] Left placard: Two spaces after a period Middle placard: One space after a period Right placard: Line break after every sentence
