[s_wilwerding]

If you crack on an edge, you tend to get a lot more little pieces of shell that tend to find their way into the egg. If you crack on a flat surface, the shell tends to just have one large crack, rather than a bunch of little cracks.

I was watching a cooking show last week, and seemingly the French way to separate an egg is to crack the whole egg into a bowl, and just scoop the yolk out with your hand.

I use the shell halves myself.