Jacob,
JP> (Possibly one could criticize MIME for not supporting more
JP> than one character set within the same body part.
You may have noticed that the process of creating standards -- or, for that
matter, any engineering design process -- requires making compromises.
The possibility of allowing fine-grained changes in the type of the data was
considered for MIME. The problem is that, at that point, you really are
talking about a markup language. This requires getting "into" the content much
more deeply, with the technical work being notably more complicated than MIME.
So, the decision was to work at the level of "attachment" -- although I do not
remember if we used that term. In fact, I sometimes refer to MIME as a
"document stapling" mechanism. Given how long it took to get MIME designed and
agreed to, I am very certain we should not have attempted anything more
ambitious.
JP> The main reason for this problem is, in my belief, that
JP> implementors live in the U.S.A. and do not meet this
JP> problem themselves.
Perhaps you have some data to support this rather interesting theory?
d/
--
Dave Crocker <dcrocker-at-brandenburg-dot-com>
Brandenburg InternetWorking <www.brandenburg.com>
Sunnyvale, CA USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>