Keith Moore writes:
1. Mail senders SHOULD NOT generate group syntax.
maybe, maybe not. groups are useful.
They're not used...
if we deprecate the group syntax we will wind up reinventing it.
Perhaps whatever we then invent will be used.
I don't know why groups aren't used. Perhaps it's because people have
little use for the concept, or perhaps there's some detail about their
syntax. In the latter case, a reinvention might succeed where groups
haven't.
mail receivers should be able to parse groups anyway, since they want
to be able to read legacy messages.
I didn't say the opposite ;)
this proposal strikes me as one of the form: since people won't adhere
to RFC X, presumably because they don't bother to read it fully,
let's write RFC Y that tells them to do something else.
More like "... let's write RFC Y telling other people that they
shouldn't expect anyone to adhere to RFC X".
(Btw, I can think of at least three other reasons why they don't parse
groups, so I don't think that presumption is warranted.)
surely it's harder to read and adhere to the combination of both RFCs
X and Y? particularly when they give conflicting advice?
Specious comparison. People aren't really adhering to RFC X in the first place.
Arnt