HTML not so evil (was Re: Eudora Replacement)

[invalid at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

As many people who hang out here probably  know, I hate HTML e-mail as
much as anybody.  But this is because of the (very poor) way in which
it is implemented.  That, and that almost all the HTML mail I receive
is spam...  (Here In Korea, HTML mail is much more popular than it
generally is in the States.)

I basically agree with everything Justin said, and I would welcome the
widespread use of HTML mail /IF DONE PROPERLY/.  One reason is so that
I don't have to use hacks like the above to indicate enphasized text.
The English language has established conventions for highlighting and
emphasizing text, however plain-text e-mail is not capable of making
use of them.  This should be corrected.  

But, it needs to be done in a way such that my two-line e-mail doesn't
go from 200 bytes to 200K, as sometimes happens with Microsoft
Word-generated HTML documents.

On Wed, Oct 13, 2004 at 09:02:03AM -0400, Gordon Marx wrote:
> > This can allow some very powerful features that text alone just can do.
> 
> How about attachments? When I need to send structured text, I use a
> format capable of structuring it.

E-mail is intended to allow people to read and write text messages
easily.  Why shouldn't it also afford them the ability to organize
that text in a way that makes sense?

To be blunt, attachments suck.  Most of the time, when I get mail with
an attachment, I delete it without ever looking at it.  Granted, I am
not working in a job where I need to read people's attachments, so I
have that luxury.  But the point is, I don't want to have to wait for
adobe acrobat to start up every bleedin' time someone wants to format
a few lines of text.  It's unnecessary, and e-mail should have that
capability.

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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