Having looked at several HTML examples it seems to me
that HTML should be placed under a
"Content-Type: application/html" field for the following reasons:
1) HTML really does require machine processing to properly
present the information it encodes. For example, HTML can
contain an indication of where text is BOLD or italics.
Netscape even includes a font size definition. This has
a likeness to postscript.
2) HTML can contain URLs (or URIs) which require machine processing
to obtain data, for example an FTP to pull over an image in GIF format.
I see no parallel to standard TEXT (have I missed something here?).
3) The notation used in HTML is meaningless to the unsophisticated
user (like my mom!). It will only confuse the unsophisticated
user if his/her mail reader just displays the raw HTML.
4) HTML is a mark up language that "just" happens to be in ASCII.
If it didn't use ASCII then we wouldn't even be having this
discussion.
I vote for treating HTML like postscript--in an application context
type.
Comments?
-Mark Joseph
Wollongong Advanced Applications Center
Santa Cruz, CA.
mjoseph(_at_)mailman(_dot_)aac(_dot_)twg(_dot_)com
markjoseph(_at_)delphi(_dot_)com