\eol_behavior and deciding a default

[Infernio]

Summary

There should be (at least) two EOL behaviors:

• break: Keep the line break at the end of every line
• continue: Remove the line break at the end of every line

Example

This is the first line.
This is the second line.

This is the first line of the second paragraph.
This is the second line of the second paragraph.

Would result in these outputs (using the html backend):

break

<p>This is the first line.<br>This is the second line.</p>
<p>This is the first line of the second paragraph.<br>This is the second line of the second paragraph.</p>

continue

<p>This is the first line. This is the second line.</p>
<p>This is the first line of the second paragraph. This is the second line of the second paragraph.</p>

Discussion

The break behavior matches what most people writing text probably expect.
The continue behavior matches what most text processing languages that target programming-related fields do (e.g. Markdown, TeX, HTML, etc.).

Some sites that choose one of these behaviors:

• Old Reddit (continue)
• New Reddit (break)
• GitHub (break)
• AO3 (break)

So probably the best idea is to make break the default, but keep continue around for people who like it (e.g. me lol).
And while I'm at it I should think of a command for making an explicit line break (probably \\, same as TeX?).