It has been suggested that the "Q" encoding used in RFC-HDRS be changed
to make it identical to the Quoted-printable encoding used in RFC-MIME.
Basically this means removing the special meaning of "_" == 20 hex
in the "Q" encoding.
While I like the idea of having the two encodings the same, this change
would make the encoded form of the text somewhat less readable, for those
without upgraded mail readers. For example:
From: =?US-ASCII?Q?Keith_Moore?= <moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu>
To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Keld_J=F8rn_Simonsen?= <keld(_at_)dkuug(_dot_)dk>
CC: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Andr=E9_?= Pirard
<PIRARD(_at_)vm1(_dot_)ulg(_dot_)ac(_dot_)be>
Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?This_is_random_text?=
would become
From: =?US-ASCII?Q?Keith=20Moore?= <moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu>
To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Keld=20J=F8rn=20Simonsen?= <keld(_at_)dkuug(_dot_)dk>
CC: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Andr=E9=20?= Pirard
<PIRARD(_at_)vm1(_dot_)ulg(_dot_)ac(_dot_)be>
Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?This=20is=20random=20text?=
So before making the change, I want to solicit opinions from the list.
Is having only one Q-style encoding worth the decrease in readability
of encoded headers?
Keith