Keith, you left this part out:
The point is
that the richtext parser's front-end "get a character"
primitive would get a wide, multioctet character. (The
special '<' character would therefore appear as a 16- or
32-bit quantity with value 60).
This is the part to which I specifically agree, saying:
Yes!
The reasoning is:
Recalling the proper
definition of "byte", however, we can if we wish continue
to think about byte streams, as long as we remember that
a byte may have more than 8 bits. ...
And if SMTP remains an "octet stream", fine.
(I think we're closer in agreement than you think we are)
--
Rick Troth <troth(_at_)rice(_dot_)edu>, Rice University, Information Systems