D
Denis Kasak
CBFalconer said:
And HTML has the tendency to make e-mail and Usenet posts unnecessarily
bigger, which will continue to be a bugger until broadband links become
common enough.
-- Denis
And HTML has the tendency to make e-mail and Usenet posts unnecessarily
bigger, which will continue to be a bugger until broadband links become
common enough.
-- Denis
M
Mike Schilling
CBFalconer said:
Useless except in that it can describe formatting, which is what it would be
used for? (
Except that it can specify the use of a fixed-width font, which makes Ascii
Art work. It can also distinguish between text that can be reformatted for
flow and text than can not.
So I think you meant to say that it *enables* Ascii Art.
Which is why a formatting-only subset, which doesn't cause any such dangers,
is required. As I said above.
Another advantage is that evewry internet-enabled computer today already
comes with an HTML renderer (AKA browser), so that a message saved to a file
can be read very easily.
R
Rich Teer
I think you're missing the point: email and Usenet are, historically have
been, and should always be, plain text mediums. If I wanted to look at
prettily formatted HTML, I'd use a web browser to look at the web.
--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member
President,
Rite Online Inc.
Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich
M
Mike Schilling
Rich Teer said:
Gosh, if you say they should be, there's no point trying to have an
intelligent discussion, is there?
T
T Beck
Mike said:
Not to mention that e-mail is practically to the point where it is
{not} a plain text medium. I notice this especially in a corporate
environment (where, at least where I work, I get at least 10 times the
number of e-mails at work than I do on my private account) HTML e-mail
is the de-facto standard. I have a tendancy to send out plain text
e-mail, and I'm practically the only one, as HTML formatting is the
default for the mail client on every corporate machine at my job.
But let's not forget that most people which send me e-mail personally
also have HTML tags in e-mail... So if e-mail {is} a plain text
medium, somebody needs to tell the general public, because I think they
must've missed a memo.
If we argue that people are evolving the way e-mail is handled, and
adding entire new feature sets to something which has been around since
the earliest days of the internet, then that's perfectly feasable.
HTML itself has grown. We've also added Javascript and Shockwave. The
websites of today don't even resemble the websites of 10 years ago,
e-mail of today only remotely resembles the original, so the argument
that usenet should never change seems a little heavy-handed and
anachronistic.
--T Beck
J
joe
Mike Schilling said:
Errm, isn't that what you're doing as well then? Rich just gave an
opinion, you've been giving an opinion. Rich's opinion happens to have
a lot of history and good reasons behind it. I don't see why it should
be viewed as some kind of discussion ending dogmatism.
Although it might not be bad if this discussion ended
Joe
J
John Bokma
Rich Teer said:
Just have a look at some web based message boards, and you might see why it
would be another disaster on Usenet. Moreoever, why keep people insisting
on making Usenet "better"? If you want HTML and fancy mark up, start a
message board. You probably can get even more people.
J
John Bokma
T Beck said:
They are not additions to HTML, like PNG is no addition to HTML, or wav,
mp3, etc.
Depends a lot on what site you visit. You can make a website of 10 years
ago look modern with roughly the same HTML of 10 years ago, and a style
sheet. (E.g. visit: http://johnbokma.com/ and turn off the stylesheet. And
there are way better examples)
Because there is no real alternative to email? If there was, email would
have died, at least for me, long ago.
No, simple since there *are* alternatives: web based message boards. Those
alternatives *do* support HTML formatting (often the subset mentioned
earlier). However, Usenet is a stranger to most people on the Internet,
even with Usenet access, and hence, there is no real reason to see it
changed into something that is "available" for years and years to more
people: www.
J
joe
T Beck said:
If you're using exchange for email servers it might be reformatting
mail sent as plain text anyway. Waste of bandwidth.
That's a good point, but just because things are evolving doesn't mean
they're making more sense. Html does waste bandwidth, it does open up
avenues for malware that text mail doesn't, etc.
It seems to me that any intelligent person has to turn off so many
"features" in html mail clients that they lose many of what are seen
of as advantages.
I suspect I either missed some of this thread or I'm misunderstanding
some of it. If what the OP was trying to suggest was a more confined
form of html, say, something that doesn't allow links, I'd consider
that a good thing. I doubt anyone will use it though, I think MS wants
all the bells and whistles, and all the embracing and extending it can
do. If they don't support such an html subset for email I suspect it
won't go anywhere.
But why bother? An html subset that takes everything away but
formatting sounds pretty much like what I'm doing right now with
gnus.
Joe
A
Alan J. Flavell
On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, Mike Schilling wrote:
[Off Topic discussion of netiquette, seen on comp.lang.perl.misc:]
Discussion about netiquette on any of these cross-posted groups cannot
by definition be "intelligent": there are proper places to discuss the
netiquette (they'd have "news" as their top hierarchy, not "comp"),
and your posting was cross-posted to none of them.
[f'ups set] [I have been trolled, mea culpa]
[Off Topic discussion of netiquette, seen on comp.lang.perl.misc:]
Discussion about netiquette on any of these cross-posted groups cannot
by definition be "intelligent": there are proper places to discuss the
netiquette (they'd have "news" as their top hierarchy, not "comp"),
and your posting was cross-posted to none of them.
[f'ups set] [I have been trolled, mea culpa]
M
Mike Schilling
I see a difference between "X would be useful for A, B, and C" and "Y will
always be the only proper way."
Don't you?
R
Rich Teer
Right. I avoid web based forums like the plague. Why? Because apart
from the (usually) very low SNR, for me interacting with a browser is
more effort than using my email/news client of 10+ years, pine.
I find that fact that something is technically possible (e.g., HTML
email and Usenet) is not necessarily a good argument for actully
DOING it.
--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member
President,
Rite Online Inc.
Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich
U
usenet
In comp.lang.perl.misc John Bokma said:
.... and generally these "web based message boards" (i.e. forums I
assume you mean) have none of the useful tools that Usenet offers and
are much, much slower.
U
Ulrich Hobelmann
That is because NNTP and its applications didn't evolve to feed the
glitzy need lots of users have.
Sadly web forums (esp. the ugly, sloooow PHPBB, and the unspeakable
Google groups) are increasingly replacing usenet, but there are
exceptions (DragonflyBSD).
On the information side (in contrast to the discussion side) RSS is
replacing Usenet, with some obvious disadvantages: go on vacation,
return after a week, and -- yahoo! -- all your RSS feeds only turn of
the, say, most recent 30 articles, while your newsgroups all show
everything you missed.
There is no real reason why NNTP couldn't be used like RSS (i.e. contain
a small description and a web link as message text), or why a newsgroup
shouldn't we written in HTML and contain a (default, or user-provided)
CSS sheet. If things were that way, suddenly people *would* use Outlook
and Thunderbird for news-reading, while today everything is just
Browser+HTTP.
Oh, yes:</rant>
R
Rich Teer
No no no! Let's keep those Outhouse lusers away from Usenet. There's
tto much top posting as it is!
--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member
President,
Rite Online Inc.
Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich
J
John Bokma
Yup, Slow because of all the HTML and avatars. And you suggest to introduce
such a thing to Usenet?
And which useful tools do you require?
J
John Bokma
Ulrich Hobelmann said:
LOL, how? I can't post to RSS feeds. Or do you mean for lurkers?
It has been used like that for ages (or as long as I can remember).
It's called www. It's already here (or there)
But why do you want that? (Oh, and you can't read news with Outlook). Why
do you want more people on Usenet?
And what's wrong with that?
M
Mike Meyer
Mike Schilling said:
No, they don't. Minimalist Unix distributions don't include a browser
by default. I know the BSD's don't, and suspect that gentoo Linux
doesn't.
HTML is designed to degrade gracefully (never mind that most web
authors and many browser developers don't seem to comprehend this), so
you don't really need a "subset" html to get the safety features you
want. All you need to do is disable the appropriate features in the
HTML renderer in your news and mail readers. JavaScript, Java, and any
form of object embedding. Oh yeah, and frames.
No problem.
<mike
P
Paul Rubin
Mike Meyer said:
Lynx?
J
John Bokma
Paul Rubin said:
Emacs?