<< In mathematical terms, this is an axiom upon which all else builds.
< No mathematics please. It's an engineering issue. PERIOD.
Ah, but most engineering depends heavily on mathematics. (After all, YOU'RE
trying to use statistics, another branch of mathematics, to support YOUR
argument. I could use the same complaint about YOUR arguments. Also, it's
interesting how you use examples of MTA's to make arguments about MUA's.)
But, since you wish to talk engineering, then let's talk engineering.
Consider the number of computers which can display us-ascii, which can
display iso-8859-x, and which can display numerous other character sets.
Then consider the number of computers which can display more than one
character set. Then consider the number of computers which can use
iso-2022-jp to switch between those multiple character sets.
Engineering is about dealing with reality. So while the numbers may change
in the future, we must deal with the reality of the world today. And the
reality is that iso-2022-jp-capable displays are in the miniscule minority.
When you send your iso-2022-jp messages out to the world without any
labelling, the vast majority of the displays in the world are incapable of
handling that message. When you send your iso-2022-jp messages out to the
world with a MIME label, recipients of that message on non-iso-2022-jp
displays, but with MIME capable mailers, can recognize what the message
contains and act accordingly. When you send a message out to the world using
MIME to switch between different character sets, users with MIME capable
mailers will be able to read most of the message without any problem and
only have to deal specially with the character sets that their displays
cannot handle.
When you send a message with multiple character sets using either
iso-2022-jp OR MIME, users without MIME capable mailers in the majority of
the world will see garbage on the screen.
I think that the majority of the people on this list feel that most users
around the world will be able to upgrade more easily to MIME-capable mailers
than they'd be able to upgrade their displays to handle all other types of
character sets.
So where do we go from here? If you follow the simple expediency of
labelling your email messages when they leave your local domain, then the
users around the world who use MIME will be able to do something intelligent
with your messages.
Besides, labelling character sets is such a small part of MIME. The many
other features of MIME are much more important.
Tony Hansen
hansen(_at_)pegasus(_dot_)att(_dot_)com,
tony(_at_)attmail(_dot_)com
att!pegasus!hansen, attmail!tony