Re: [topicmaps-comment] Email line-wrapping etiquette

[Murray Altheim <murray.altheim@sun.com>]

> "Seidl, Andy" wrote:
> 
> <two-cents-worth>
> 
> Of course there's the option of using a more intelligent e-mail client.
> Doing so eliminates the burden of worrying about something that
> people should not be spending brain cycles on; it means that all those
> existing long-lined messages become no problem; and it allows each
> client more flexibility to format messages so they look good on
> *their* device.
> 
> It would not really be
> reasonable to expect people
> to enter text like this
> for the benefit of folks
> using a dumb mail client
> on an iPAQ.
> 
> Or worse,
> like this
> for web
> phones.
> 
> </two-cents-worth>

This isn't a limitation in software, it's a cultural habit.

I'm guessing you're somewhat new to email? Being an old-timer 
(maybe 1982?) I've seen many years of emails, all in text format. 
Since I'm in the computer sciences, many of these included code 
samples, whitespace-formatted tables, and other formatting 
created deliberately by their authors (I think more immediately 
of Jon Aubrey's carefully-crafted writings). I don't think poets
want their poems reformatted either. Whitespace in email is
significant, the way most people write it (in my experience).

Not everything is a paragraph. If it were, an "intelligent" email
client could handle it. The benefit of email being in text/plain
is that we don't need such "intelligent" software to deal with it.
Given the current state of intelligent email software (eg., MS
Lookout, oops, Outlook) I'll perhaps appear as a Luddite in 
wishing the world to remain in text/plain.

If we look back on the history from which "modern" computing displays 
have been derived, the 80 column display has been the lingua franca
of the Internet. For email on web phones, there's no good ergonomic
solution for a 14 character wide display other than a scrollpane, 
which would be terrible. But I don't think anyone on a cellphone 
expects to read things with any formatting, nor do I think anyone
on a laptop or desktop expects to format for 14 character displays.

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim                         <mailto:murray.altheim&#x40;sun.com>
XML Technology Center
Sun Microsystems, Inc., MS MPK17-102, 1601 Willow Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025

      In the evening
      The rice leaves in the garden
      Rustle in the autumn wind
      That blows through my reed hut.  -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu