Rebuttal: The Curious Case of the Missing Space.

Why You Should Never, Ever Use Two Spaces Between Sentences - The Atlantic

My older brother and sister informed me of an article from the Atlantic which heatedly refuted the notion of the double space.  The author insists that the twice-tapping of the space bar is an old habit resulting from dated technology.  Maybe this is so, but does that make the wider gap between sentences a "bad" habit?

We have picked up plenty of new practices over the years: drink less, get eight hours of sleep, floss regularly.  That's it.  Imagine the double space as the floss between the sentences; clean separation is healthier for the piece as a whole.  If it doesn't affect the message then why not add that extra blank after the period?

What doesn't hurt our writing, only makes it stronger.


Update:  Apparently, this topic of debate is more heated than I realized.  Here is another article from The Atlantic, rebutting the rebuttal.

http://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2011/01/you-can-have-my-double-space-when-you-pry-it-from-my-cold-dead-hands/69592/

Below is my favorite excerpt (stated far more eloquently than I have done previously):

Manjoo's argument about beauty, like all such arguments, is easy enough to dismiss: I disagree. I find it easier to read paragraphs that are composed of sentences separated by two spaces. Perhaps this is because I, like most technologists, spend most of my time working with (quite lovely!) fixed-width fonts for practical reasons. But there's also a deeper beauty to the two space rule -- a sort of mathematical beauty. Let me explain.
Consider the typical structure of writing. Letters are assembled into words, which turn into phrases, which are arranged into sentences -- at the same time being assigned to speakers, a neat trick -- which are then combined into paragraphs.
It's a chemical process, a perfect and infinitely flexible hierarchical system that should command our admiration. Being able to rationally examine, disassemble and interrogate the final product is a mark of the system's beauty. Anything less is settling for a sort of holistic mysticism.
It's disrespectful to let writing's constituent elements bleed into one another through imprecise demarcations.