yeah, i was just wondering why the author kind of explicitly recommended against using white space when most parsers (including MS excel in my experience) handle white space encapsulated in quotes just fine
That's for variable names, not run-of-the-mill text. Variable names (and, in certain situations, dictionary keys) generally can't have spaces, so if you're generating code off of the data set, having to generate variable names (or dictionary keys) without spaces is an additional step.