ietf-822
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: overdefining text/plain?

1998-03-11 10:10:43
It seems to me we're pretty close to agreement here with two minor
exceptions, and those seem to simply be a lack of understanding on my part.

On 3/11/98 at 10:19 AM -0600, Ned Freed wrote:

The only thing that these documents say is that
text/plain should be able to be displayed "uninterpreted", presumably
differentiating it from text/enriched and the like in that you don't have
to interpret the characters inside text/plain as meaning something other
than "character". So, text/plain is defining an interpretation semantics,
but not a display semantics per se.

Read the documents again. This is not all they say.

Well, I have read them many times, but I went back and read them again.
Searching for all occurences of the word "text" in 2049, I find no section
refering to text/plain which discuss display semantics.

2046 is a little more interesting. The sections in question are the top of
4.1, 4.1.1, and 4.1.3. In none of these can I find display semantics for
text/plain other than 'Plain text is intended to be displayed "as-is", that
is, no interpretation of embedded formatting commands, font attribute
specifications, processing instructions, interpretation directives, or
content markup should be necessary for proper display.' But that simply
says that text/plain does *not* need further interpretation of its content
for display. It certainly doesn't say how it ought to be displayed, e.g.,
whether to render it in braille or in some color on a CRT or where to put
line breaks. It's simply silent on the issue.

Is there something I'm missing?

What worries me about the parameter approach is that its too easy...

Why is this a problem?

...and the restraints a document
specifying it will require are likely not to be acceptable to the people who
want to send around paragraph text.

Such as? I don't see what constraints will be objected to.

pr
--
Pete Resnick <mailto:presnick(_at_)qualcomm(_dot_)com>
QUALCOMM Incorporated
Work: (217)337-6377 or (619)651-4478 / Fax: (217)337-1980

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>