No it does not come down to personal preference, except that the writer’s proper preference to produce more readable writing. In fact one thing I particularly dislike about HTML is that it (usually) automatically collapses two spaces to one. And conventions are only good when they are better than the alternatives—two spaces helps set off a sentence, just as capitalization does, and makes text more readable. Web “usability” is also strongly against long blocks of text, which tends to suggest (to me at least) that non-readers (or even anti-readers, witness the popularity of videoblogging and podcasts) have too much influence over web conventions.
It does come down to personal preference in choosing what style to follow. For example, while the CMS says you shouldn’t double space, the MLA says it’s okay. I was taught to double space in high school, but gave it up afterwards, first because I felt it was unaesthetic, and second because I prefer to follow the CMS in most respects.
No it does not come down to personal preference, except that the writer’s proper preference to produce more readable writing. In fact one thing I particularly dislike about HTML is that it (usually) automatically collapses two spaces to one. And conventions are only good when they are better than the alternatives—two spaces helps set off a sentence, just as capitalization does, and makes text more readable. Web “usability” is also strongly against long blocks of text, which tends to suggest (to me at least) that non-readers (or even anti-readers, witness the popularity of videoblogging and podcasts) have too much influence over web conventions.
It does come down to personal preference in choosing what style to follow. For example, while the CMS says you shouldn’t double space, the MLA says it’s okay. I was taught to double space in high school, but gave it up afterwards, first because I felt it was unaesthetic, and second because I prefer to follow the CMS in most respects.