Excerpts from bulk.interesting.lists: 20-Aug-98 Re: format=flowed : why
not.. Chris Newman(_at_)innosoft(_dot_)co (1588*)
In hindsight, we should have developed a markup language using tricks like
_italics_, *bold* and >excerpt for email, so that the markup language
itself would be plain text. Even that would require style-run merging,
but it probably would have worked. Unfortunately, it's too late to
introduce something like that now.
It seems to me that something like this was actually discussed early on
in the MIME drafting. I don't remember why it lost out, but I do
remember that it turned out to be a lot more complicated than it sounded.
Excerpts from bulk.interesting.lists: 20-Aug-98 Re: format=flowed : why
not.. Valdis(_dot_)Kletnieks(_at_)vt(_dot_)edu (2043*)
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'm very sympathetic to this argument, but I fear that in practice it
might work out very badly (if, for example, one concluded that a market
leader was in the "can't get it right" category). Forcing another MUA
upgrade on users (like the introduction of MIME in the first place)
should not be out of the question, but it certainly shouldn't be entered
into lightly. -- Nathaniel
--------
Practice gives duration to problems. Practice is total inattention. Never
practise: you can only practise mistakes. Learning is always new.
-- Krishnamurti
Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb+faq(_at_)guppylake(_dot_)com>