Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 13:31:09 -0500
From: lee(_at_)sqlee(_dot_)sq(_dot_)com (Liam R. E. Quin)
To: enag(_at_)ifi(_dot_)uio(_dot_)no, moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu
Subject: Re: MIME to Draft Standard
Cc: NED(_at_)sigurd(_dot_)innosoft(_dot_)com,
gvaudre(_at_)cnri(_dot_)reston(_dot_)va(_dot_)us,
ietf-822(_at_)dimacs(_dot_)rutgers(_dot_)edu
Actually Richtext isn't that far off SGML now, although it would *really*
help if special characters such as <nl> for newline (or is it lt? sorry)
wer represented in some other way, e.g. @<lt> or @lt; instead. The SGML
Reference Concrete Syntax uses "&" unfortunately -- I am not going to
suggest that < be used, as then every other use of & would need to be
quoted. But it would help to treat elements like <bold> differently
from special characters, whether newline, tab, or a-acute.
If people want or need to send more complex SGML, that's up to them, and if
SGML is a registered text subtype, they can do so.
From my point-of-view, I have a similar concern -- I want to be able to
extend the set of richtext commands that do not nest (and thus do not
require a matching "end command"), and to be able to tell by looking that a
particular command is non-nesting. (Such commands, in my view, might not be
limited to "special characters", but they wouldn't be allowed to change
typeface, size, margins, etc.)
I think '&' would be a reasonable character to introduce such commands.
Keith