Re: format=flowed : why not use HTML?

On Thu, 20 Aug 1998 12:18:44 PDT, Randall Gellens said:
> There are lots of other problems that would be nice to solve, but
> realistically won't be.  If we can agree on a solution to the most
> basic and simple form of the problem we may have a chance of seeing it
> implemented and deployed, and thus have Internet email made a bit safer
> and more interoperable.  If we try to get fancy, we likely won't agree,
> and certainly won't see successful deployment.
If you make handling of text/plain anything other than a simple
"while (getchar()) putchar();' loop, somebody *will* botch it.
Let's face it - there's two groups of MUA producers: the ones who
will Get It Right (so we may as well come up with a *good* solution
even if more complicated), and the ones who Get It Wrong.

<rant>
Personally, I'm more and more convinced that we have a moral *obligation*
to produce something that *will* irritate the customers of those vendors
that Cant Get It Right.

I know a lot of people get pissed off because I multipart/sign my mail,
but the irritant factor has also gotten a number of people to upgrade.
I had one co-worker who kept whining that his MUA was *totally* unable
to read my mail because it didn't downgrade /signed to /mixed.  I kept
doing it, he finally gave up and changed to another MUA.

Remember all the whining that happened when MIME was first deployed?

Heard anybody whine "What's this 'This is a MIME message'?" lately?

I think it's time for another round.
</rant>

/Valdis (who spent the day hacking up procmailrc rules to automate
responses to people with brokked mail systems)...

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