Re: OT: Flamebait: Text vs HTML email
Ron Johnson wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2002-07-24 at 20:29, Travis Crump wrote:
> > Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2002-07-24 at 19:10, Colin Watson wrote:
> > >
> > >>On Wed, Jul 24, 2002 at 06:55:29PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>In fact, the only documentation that I know of that is
> > >>>pure ASCII are README files. That's why roff was put into
> > >>>Unix 25 years ago: because bold, underlines, italics, and
> > >>>different point sizes *do* impart information that pure
> > >>>ASCII can not.
> > >>
> > >>That said, man pages use an *extremely* conservative subset of *roff ...
> > >
> > > True, but some extreme positions were being expressed, and I
> > > saw the need to remind that there's a large spectrum between
> > > low infrared and hight ultraviolet.
> > >
> > > As in may other areas, 3" high bold, red fonts in emails can
> > > be directly attributable to PEBKAC, and that does not invalidate
> > > the *judicious* use of differing sizes, strokes and colors...
> > >
> >
> > Though amazingly, you were able to /add/ *bold* formatting to a _plain
> > text e-mail_ :)
>
> People devised these de facto standards because of the inadequacy
> of plain ACSII. Good examples of judicious use are at linuxtoday.com
> and slashdot, where italics, bold and underline are allowed, but
> the potential for abuse (i.e. color and point size).
Aw, c'mon now, Ron! /. easy to read and digest?
I'm one of the first hundred subscribers to /. and I do browse it at
least once per day; but, easily read is *not* a phrase that I'd use to
describe /.
Besides, we ``devised'' these idioms, because it adds character and is
fun and allows us to express our creativity and joy, &c. IMHO, if the
internet was, from the outset, too staid and tedious and inadequate to
the task, I sincerely doubt that there ever would have been a www -- do
you remember gopher?
O, boy, am I ever getting old . . .
--
Best Regards,
mds
mds resource
888.250.3987
Dare to fix things before they break . . .
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think we know. The more I know, the more I know I don't know . . .
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