> On Thu, Jul 07, 2005 at 07:22:23PM -0400, Lorenzo Taylor wrote:
> > Wow! I really like the XML approach. But how are you going to get all t=
> he
> > email programs in the world to use it? It seems too late to make such a =
> smart
> > new approach to email a standard now as old as email is. Then again, if =
> HTML
> > email is accepted in so many circles, (not here but ...) why not XML email
> > everywhere? It's a much better approach than anything that has been thou=
> ght up
> > thus far.
>
> It would have to be a voluntary type standard. The Unix
> flat-file standard is pretty played out, I'd say.
...
> Incidentally, this would response to the other fellow who
> asked how to extend the XML format to interspersing quotes
> with responses. You could even do something like
>
> <body>
> <quote messageID=3D"foo">
...
Sorry to join an interesting discussion in mid-stream, and hope I'm
not making points already offered.
It is my impression that, for good practical reasons, the goal is to
sharply separate the form and content of text, and so I suppose that
XML is inevitable. The transition to it may be challenging, but I don't
see that there is much of an alternative, given our need in this
emerging new world to make communications universal. However, this
assumes that text is ultimately human-readable, or more generally,
useful to some client device that interprets format in its own
distinctive way.
However, I need text that is "machine-readable" - that is,
intelligible for processing by the "server device" - me. I
constantly need to manipulate text independently of any format
markup. It would not be difficult to strip away the XML markup
automatically or transparently. Although my mail reader (rmail under
emacs) is wedded to plain text, I can "disappear" any markup if I
need to. So XML markup is an annoyance at this point, but if it
became standard, I could adjust.
Until then, markups are a pain. The passages I've quoted above are
an example. I had the impression the "=" to mark a carriage return was
a peculiar effect of Windows editors, and my emacs re-fill command
treats them as an ordinary character, not a line wrap. This is not
stupidity on emacs' part, for how does a Windows application
distinguish a "=" control character from a plain ASCII character?
Also, the "=3D" hex notation. My browser, when confronted with it does
not interpret it properly as "=", but literally as "=3D". I suspect
this markup is intended solely for Internet Explorer (in order to
promote Billy's monopoly).
If this is a hint that peoples' editors are not even respecting
current standards, then the transition to XML as the standard will
indeed be a rocky road.
--
Haines Brown
KB1GRM
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