Comment by dragonwriter
6 years ago
> Too bad I can't read it because HN quotes suck on mobile
HN quotes are fine on mobile. But, just to be clear, this is how HN does quotes:
“quoted text”
And this is how HN does code blocks
def this_is(code)
not_a_quote
end
HN code blocks abused for long prose quotations suck on mobile (and aren't appealing on desktop, either), but that's abusing code blocks.
You'd have a point if the quote in question was a long prose quotation. It isn't; it's a poem and code formatting is often the only way to get poetry to appear reasonable.
Code formatting does not get poetry to appear reasonable. That's actually the whole issue being discussed.
On the other hand if you don't like each line spaced as a paragraph, as it would be if you try to keep the line structure I. HN non-code text, you can, on HN, use the same convention used everywhere else that it is impossible, impractical, or undesirable to set poetry while preserving the line structure:
“this is a line of poetry / and this is another line / each separated from the next with / a solidus set with space / on either side.”
The whole issue being discussed is that HN made a terrible design desicion when they implemented quotes and code styling for Mobile.
Poetry is not a particularly common use case on Hacker News, though, and I'm not convinced anybody needs to optimize for it.
HN gobbles up literal new lines without code blocks so either the poem would all run together or have blank lines between each line.