Quoting Dave Crocker <David_Crocker(_at_)Pa(_dot_)dec(_dot_)com>
Subject doesn't change, so it doesn't have less functionality. Body
changes, to get vastly more functionality. How does this sum to to be
less functionality?
Simple: Today there is no character limitations for the subject
line. Tomorrow there will be (with RFC-XXXX).
The users will naturally want to continue to use our special
characters, as they allways have. But suddently -- as those characters
now will be 8-bit -- we have to stop them from doing that on the
subject line. This is a severe decrease in functionality.
Well, we could change all the UAs to make nasty conversions of what
the user types in as subject (into the 7-bit codes used before), but
then it will look awful for the receiver.
The move to an 8-bit character set is very good for us -- we don't
have to have double meanings for some code elements in the 7-bit code
anymore. (Today "{" is sometimes a left brace, sometimes a lowercase
"a" with dots above.)
So, how do you then explain to the users that as a *consequence* of
this good improvement, they will have to live with the deterioration
that they can't write decent letters anymore? I can't.
---
Peter Svanberg, NADA, KTH email:
psv(_at_)nada(_dot_)kth(_dot_)se