Post: Semantic linefeeds

content/post/2016-08-semantic-linefeeds.md

@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+---
+title: "Semantic linefeeds: one clause per line"
+slug: semantic-linefeeds
+date: 2016-08-22T21:05:45+01:00
+description: |
+  Still letting your text editor
+  break lines for you at 80 characters?
+  Take back control!
+draft: false
+tags:
+- Writing
+topics:
+- Stuff
+type: post
+---
+
+I've started using ["semantic linefeeds", a concept I discovered on Brandon Rhodes' blog][source],
+when writing content,
+an idea described in that article far better than I could.
+I turns out this is a very old idea,
+promoted way back in the day by Brian W Kernighan,
+contributor to the original Unix system,
+co-creator of the AWK and AMPL programming languages
+and co-author of a lot of seminal programming textbooks
+including "The C Programming Language".
+
+The basic idea is
+that you break lines at natural gaps between clauses and phrases,
+rather than simply after the last word before you hit 80 characters.
+Keeping line lengths strictly to 80 characters
+isn't really necessary
+in these days of wide aspect ratios for screens.
+Breaking lines at points that make semantic sense in the sentence
+is really helpful for editing,
+especially in the context of version control,
+because it isolates changes to the clause in which they occur
+rather than just the nearest 80-character block.
+
+I also like it because it makes my crappy prose
+feel just a little bit more like poetry. ☺
+
+[source]: http://rhodesmill.org/brandon/2012/one-sentence-per-line/