Top post [was Re: [OT] [oclug] Mandrake]

[Michael P. Soulier]

On 18/11/03 Rod Giffin did speaketh:

> Yes that can happen, in fact it's maybe not the e-mail client that is
> defective, but the paradigm that e-mail is currently using.  It should not
> be up to the senders software to format the e-mail stream for the
> recipient.  The recipient's device should do the formatting, including
> maintaining quoted sections, and present it to the user in the best
> possible format for the circumstances.
> 
> XMTP anyone?
> <ducking>
>   I'm not advocating a solution, just pointing out that
>   the problem has been recognized for a while.
> </ducking>

Sure, but until such a solution is standardized, and widely implemented,
our only solution is to keep it simple for everyone. 

I would like to see either line wrapping at <80 columns, or line
wrapping at the end of each paragraph. The latter is fixable in Vim with
a simple gq command, or Emacs with M-q. Still, for those not using
decent editors, like the crappy built-ins in most GUI MUAs, the latter
is a problem too. 

At the moment, I don't care about PDAs and blackberrys. They should be
designed with this in mind, and automagickally rewrap.

We know a lot of internet protocols are broken today. If you want to
push for change, good, but lets also deal with the problem _today_. The
only way to do that is to communicate via accepted ettiquette and
protocol. If you think these don't matter, try visiting a foreign
country and treating them all like you do people at home.

Mike

-- 
Michael P. Soulier <msoulier at digitaltorque.ca>
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a
good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be
dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead." -- RFC 1925
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://tux.oclug.on.ca/pipermail/oclug/attachments/20031119/9004b4b1/attachment.bin