I think you are correct Roy, I have, and will continue to
manually code my SPF records. And if I
wanted SPF XML records, I would have to do them by hand also
(I don't have any XML encoding
software, not to say that there won't be any free ones, but I
have far better things to spend my
software budget on right now).
Back in 1992 there was only one editor capable of WYSWIG editing
of HTML and that ran on a NexT box that almost nobody had access
to.
Even so an awful lot of HTML got written at a time when almost
nobody had used anything like SGML before.
Pretty much every mail admin is used to dealing with HTML encoded
mail, and the quantities of legacy plaintext encoded email are
likely to drop significantly over the comming years.
Windows admins are likely to see every config file on the system
turn XML over the next few releases for sure. I strongly suspect
that quite a bit of XMLification will happen even on Linux.
The future of messaging is a convergence of what are today
artificialy separate protocols. Try reading the web using an
RSS reader and you will see an interface that looks identical
to a mail or news interface. The only real difference between
mail and instant messaging is the priority given to the delivery
notice. Same for the telephone, or videoconf.
So I really don't expect that the term 'mail admin' will have much
relevance in the future as a distinct specialization. If a mail
admin can't hack XML then they won't be able to find much of a job.
Phill