Bruno Haible wrote: > Paul Eggert wrote: >> The "cat INSTALL" argument is not that persuasive > > The other argument is that when viewing a file with "vi" and scrolling > through it, the cursor interrupts the reading flow when it is placed > on the last line and that line is not a blank one. > > But of course, these arguments are about esthetics. There is no guarantee > that they convince a rationally thinking person.
Hi Bruno, For me, it's about consistency (which, in its own way, is about aesthetics). Compare this with trailing blanks at the end of a line, where we prefer to avoid the inconsistency, so the minimalist approach of having none seems best. We could opt to leave one space at the end of every line, but that would seem a little strange. Or we could be inconsistent and designate a few files as somehow special and say that they should have one space at the end of each line, while all others should have none. NL-at-EOF is similar, but since there's only one per file, it's not as big a deal.
