ietf-822
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Re: Content-transfer-encoding: x-uue

1992-02-14 10:17:43
uuencode works just fine in its common environment 
(netnews)...

Uuencode sort of works well enough for news.  However, it's definitely
*not* good enough for mail.  You might note that in the C News distribution,
we supply bencode (which is similar in flavor to base64 although not quite
identical in detail) for encapsulating news when sending it via mail.
There is a reason why we didn't just use uuencode:  it does not work
reliably for this application.  In particular, it does not get data
through Bitnet mail reliably.  The folks at Waterloo who wrote bencode
did so out of necessity, not out of desire to reinvent the wheel; their
news feed came via Bitnet mail for a while.

pushing base64 as the one true solution when it doesn't
even have error detection seems a bit presumptuous.

Clearly something has to be done about error detection before pushing
base64 as the solution to all mankind's problems.  Although it is less
prone to getting mangled en route than uuencode, there are still forms
of mangling that will affect it.

I thought that the IETF had a mandate to at least describe
existing practice before leaping off into new solutions.

There are several cases of existing practice that closely resemble base64,
although none that are identical that I know of.

                                         Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
                                          
henry(_at_)zoo(_dot_)toronto(_dot_)edu   utzoo!henry

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