For reading on a computer screen, this is very true: a blank line between paragraphs makes text easier to read (whether the first line is indented or not). And if you're writing/copying/formatting for the web in particular, using the <P> tag without overriding any of the default styling will accomplish exactly that on most users' screens -- the exceptions being those who have chosen to override the default settings on their end (in which case presumably it's because they're oddballs who don't find the same things easy to read as the rest of us and it's a good thing that they can change the settings), and possibly those using unusual browsers with unusual default behaviour (in which case it's their problem if it's a problem).
That is, the <P> tag, absent specific stylesheet info packed into it, means, "Oh web browser, this here is the start of a new paragraph. Do be a decent application and do whatever it is you do to render a paragraph break correctly and show it to your user, if you don't mind. Thank you very much."
(If you wanted to get fancy about it, you could make a single copy of a document in HTML render with indented paragraphs when printed and blank lines between paragraphs when displayed on a monitor, if your browser can be set to automatically use two different stylesheets for the two different output modes, or if you use one browser for viewing and another for printing. That's a cool thing about separating content from layout. Giving users the ability to say, "Oh web browser, from now on I'd like you to render paragraph breaks according to my idiosyncratic tastes, thank you," is another.)
So to do it wrong, you have to go out of your way, or do a really brain-dead conversion from a non-webbed source.
If you're posting to a newsgroup or archiving a text file on an FTP server, you want to insert the blank lines -- and the carriage returns at the ends of reasonable-length lines of text within the paragraph -- by hand. Okay, maybe not literally by hand, since the task is easy to automate, but those things should be in the file. Having a glimmer of a clue about the particular medium one is using is a good thing.
The thing is, this is So Easy to Get Right that it frustrates me all the more to see how often it is gotten wrong.
(no subject)
That is, the <P> tag, absent specific stylesheet info packed into it, means, "Oh web browser, this here is the start of a new paragraph. Do be a decent application and do whatever it is you do to render a paragraph break correctly and show it to your user, if you don't mind. Thank you very much."
(If you wanted to get fancy about it, you could make a single copy of a document in HTML render with indented paragraphs when printed and blank lines between paragraphs when displayed on a monitor, if your browser can be set to automatically use two different stylesheets for the two different output modes, or if you use one browser for viewing and another for printing. That's a cool thing about separating content from layout. Giving users the ability to say, "Oh web browser, from now on I'd like you to render paragraph breaks according to my idiosyncratic tastes, thank you," is another.)
So to do it wrong, you have to go out of your way, or do a really brain-dead conversion from a non-webbed source.
If you're posting to a newsgroup or archiving a text file on an FTP server, you want to insert the blank lines -- and the carriage returns at the ends of reasonable-length lines of text within the paragraph -- by hand. Okay, maybe not literally by hand, since the task is easy to automate, but those things should be in the file. Having a glimmer of a clue about the particular medium one is using is a good thing.
The thing is, this is So Easy to Get Right that it frustrates me all the more to see how often it is gotten wrong.