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Re: [Nmh-workers] I like neither green eggs and ham nor MIME

2014-07-16 14:05:31
On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 1:43 PM,  <norm(_at_)dad(_dot_)org> wrote:

No. They were not. Before the advent of Mime, that came with the Tower of
Babel, all was was ASCII.

If you want to go down the pendantic route, than it was not ASCII.
ASCII is how one encodes textual data (in a computer), so if what you
say is true, then all the documents you cited would just have been a
serious of numbers.

Also, ASCII is mainly only useful for English, and much of what you cite
was not in English.

When I discuss such matters about MIME and pre-MIME email, I use the
term "plain text", where the vast majority of email communication can
still be adequately done with "plain text" (or to use MIME
content-types, "text/plain").  This covers whatever character encoding one
may be using (the whole world does not communicate in English).

I have the habit of always converting HTML emails I received into plain
text when I reply (since the reply quoting semantics are
well-established for plain text data and not HTML).  I am likely not to
win any converts, but it shows that meaningful discussions can still be
done in plain text.


If Pythogorous could get along with ASCII so could Netwton:

      The sum of the areas of the two squares on the legs of a right triangle
      equals the area of the square on its hypotenuse

I did not know Pythogorous wrote in English.  If in ASCII, it would be:

  084 104 101 032 115 117 109 032 111 102 032 116 104 101 032 097 114
  101 097 115 032 111 102 032 116 104 101 032 116 119 111 032 115 113
  117 097 114 101 115 032 111 110 032 116 104 101 032 108 101 103 115
  032 111 102 032 097 032 114 105 103 104 116 032 116 114 105 097 110
  103 108 101 032 101 113 117 097 108 115 032 116 104 101 032 097 114
  101 097 032 111 102 032 116 104 101 032 115 113 117 097 114 101 032
  111 110 032 105 116 115 032 104 121 112 111 116 101 110 117 115 101

--ewh

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