ietf-822
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Re: quoted-pair in dcontent / Space after colon (Was: New 2822upd-04 - obs-NO-WS-CTL)

2008-01-24 22:39:34

In <4797B078(_dot_)6090102(_at_)att(_dot_)com> Tony Hansen 
<tony(_at_)att(_dot_)com> writes:

-1

Requiring a SP character after the : is a non-starter for me. I've used 
a number of systems that use TAB instead of SP; they're still out there 
and should not be considered invalid.

Well we are not proposing to REQUIRE it.

Messages with a TAB rather than a SP will interoperate with Netnews better
than messages with neither, but some Netnews software will still baulk at
the TAB.

But all we are doing is pointing out to implementors that SP is the
"usual" practice, and explaining the consequences (non-interoperability
with many/most Netnews systems) if they do not follow it. It is up to
implementors to decide whether that disadvantage matters enough for them
to change their system. More realistically, my wording should encourage
them to include SP rather than TAB in any new software that gets written.

I don't expect the world to be 100% perfect, but OTOH I don't want it ever
to get less perfect than it already is due to ignorance of some small
feature that incurs negligible cost to implement "properly".

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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