inline HTML, 1L8N, 16-bit character sets, the death of ASCII predicted

[J C Lawrence]

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 12:38:01 -0700 
richard childers </ kg6hac <fscked at pacbell.net>> wrote:

> Rich text isn't going away any time soon. In fact, most clients
> automatically convert anything that parses as a URL into a clickable
> entity. Multiple fonts are frequently embedded in messages.

Automatic client-side parsing of static localhost-constrained content
and automatic client-side parsing of dynamic and unbounded content are
two different things.  Currently no market-significant MUAs support
constraining HTML-parsing to only localhost-static structures.

I suggest you examine that difference and its implications carefully.
It is rather more significant than you appear to currently understand.

> I personally find it valuable to use bold to highlight certain
> critical elements of communications to clients, so that there is no
> misunderstanding.

Certainly, but that doesn't define or require HTML.  There are many
_many_ *many* MANY ways to indicate EMPHASIS or -->indication<-- using
flat text, and that doesn't even begin to include the other static
content approaches like PDF, Postscript, TeX, dvi, etc.

> The majority of the world's users increasingly agree, that this adds
> value ... and with 18LN efforts solidly based on 16-bit character
> sets, the days of plain old ASCII are, I suspect, numbered.

You may be right, but that a) doesn't necessarily apply here, b) doesn't
necessarily apply now, and perhaps more significantly c) has been
explicitly selected and defined as being unwelcome here and now.  If you
disagree with that particular technical view you are more than free to
state and demonstrate your case.  However, don't be surprised if the
reaction is:

  You think you could do the job better?  Then you take the job and you
  be responsible!

It is very easy to criticise.  It is a little less easy to define,
implement and maintain solutions which can't be criticised.

-- 
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.