The Great "Hard Return" Debate

[Marty Abrego]

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On Tue, 02 Nov 1999 11:18:45 -0400 (AST), Trevor Smith wrote:

>FWIW, I also like hard returns. However, I'd like more people to use
>a sane line width (maybe 70 chars?) so I don't have to keep
>stretching my message windows to see their messages with "one line
>per line". :-)

I never did understand this line of reasoning -- especially from OS/2
users.  Don't we venerate doing business in platform/software neutral
ways?  

Hard returns only look good at "small" widths and get worse with
every quoted reply.  It puts the recipient at the mercy of not even
the original sender, but the random settings of everyone along a
thread.

Seems to me that the best way to get a clean-looking email display is
for everyone to send mail with no hard returns except to break a
paragraph.  Then all mail clients would produce a clean display by
wrapping to whatever the current window width or however many
characters the *user* wanted to see.  You wouldn't have to stretch to
accomdate the email -- it look good at any size to which you stretch
your window.

Am I missing something here?


                  \\|//
  Marty Abrego    (o o)          "Anarchy does not imply mayhem."    
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  photon@qnet.com                                - Mr. Realtime
  
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