At 11:20 PM -0700 8/20/98, Dave Crocker wrote:
Well, I've been watching the exchange.
Let me see if I understand the arguments:
1. text/html (or other html use)
For:
It is supported in some user agents already. If has more than enough power
for the paragraph wrapping.
Against:
It is supported in ONLY SOME user agents already. It is very ugly when
seen with user agents that don't support html.
I would add that it is incompatible with plain text in other situations
such as grepping your spool file and automatic processing by scripts.
For example one might run a mailing list that forces all HTML postings to
plain text or maybe just plain rejects them. I would like to see the format
we settle on be allowed in such a situation.
2. text/paragraph
For:
simple. sufficient. no extra (formatting) data in text.
Against:
New text/ subtype gets mishandled when unknown to UA. (sigh.)
3. text/plain format=flowed
For:
simple. sufficient. no extra (formatting) data in text. does not
misbehave with UAs that don't recognize the parameter.
Against:
yet-another mechanism, when text/html is probably going to take over
(eventually).
I don't want to make a big argument about it because I think the argument
for this option stands without it, but my thought would be that text/html
will never completely take over. Plain text is just lower cost and simpler
and easier in so many situations.
LL