On Dec 9, 3:47pm, Masataka Ohta wrote:
}
} Mail programs does not display anything, while I can program my
} terminal emulator to do so.
On Dec 9, 3:58pm, Masataka Ohta wrote:
}
} The reality is that it is readable by all the people who can read it.
Ohta-san,
Although I am able to read only a few characters of Kanji and a bit more
of Katakana, I would love to be able to be able to display any Japanese
email that I might receive; for the simple beauty of the characters, for
my practice in learning to read it, and so my wife can perhaps translate
it for me.
Unfortunately, I have no "terminal emulator". I have instead an X11-based
graphical mail user agent, which must display the messages I receive and
generate the messages I send. Further, it is of equal importance to me
to be able to receive, manipulate and send pictures and other graphical
data as it is to deal with text; so I do not reasonably have the choice of
resorting to a mail program that works within a terminal emulator.
I can, if I know for any given message that it is necessary, pass the
message on to another "emulator" of some kind; that leaves me unable to
manipulate the message as I do other messages, for example to excerpt from
it as I have done with your messages above, but at least I can look at it.
However, it would be wasteful for me to pass every message I receive to
such an emulator, as the vast majority of my correspondents do not send
me ISO 2022 text; and some of them may even send me messages that would
be interpreted incorrectly if I attempt to treat them as ISO 2022. Yes,
I as a human can guess when I receive a message that it is necessary to
pass it through some kind of emulator, and I can usually even guess which
one -- but that guess is nearly always based on outside information such
as whether the sender's address is in Japan. I could even program my
user agent to make similar guesses, but then how does that differ from
having a label to instruct my user agent which emulator to use? Why
must I continue only to guess, when it would be so simple to be told?
You say, "The reality is that it is readable by all the people who can
read it." Each time I see a message from you, I wonder with sorrow why
you seek to exclude so many from that group. My sorrow, though, is for
others who will suffer by such exclusion; you have already built a wall
around yourself which no greater reality could hope to breach.
--
Bart Schaefer Vice President, Technology, Z-Code Software
schaefer(_at_)z-code(_dot_)com Division of Network Computing
Devices, Inc.
civilization (siv"i-le-za'shen), n., see ISO 2022