At 03:53 AM 11/2/00 +0800, Rick Jelliffe wrote:
On Wed, 1 Nov 2000, Dan Kohn wrote:
RFC 2646 was exactly about dealing with these practical issues of how to
role out new functionality within text/* without generating user
frustration.
What user frustration would it cause to bless common practise?
I think Dan was describing the frustration of users who get to sort out
mostly incomprehensible junk in their email or in other areas.
I don't find HTML mail especially fun to read by hand, and I used to have
problems with people sending me RTF as text and expecting me to do
something with it.
I'd say I was pretty frustrated, personally. My current email program
(Eudora 4.1) still barfs on HTML email containing XML processing
instructions, like Microsoft Word 2000 output. If that wasn't all spam,
I'd be really genuinely irritated.
I can't say I encourage anyone to use text/* for uses other than plain text
at this point.
Common practice is sometimes best practice, sometimes not.
Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books