Another New Feature Request

[Bill Wood]

Yes, Sir. I realize it's imbedded in the standards,
software, and maybe, even, hardware, and it'd be a big
deal to fix it (ie, the entire email problem). But my
take is that the current email fabric does not work
very well and sooner or later it will be fixed. With
tens of millions of users becoming avid emailers, email
must be idiot proof with all complexity totally
invisible. It cannot, for example, depend on everyone
following some obscure 'netiquette'.

The questions are how, when, and, particularly, by
whom. It may be that the fix will come thru advanced
browser design, maybe dictated by MS - who knows.

As for using mime, I think there is natural line of
demarcation here. If I compose a message it goes into
the body of the msg. A referenced file would be
attached. But, note, I am still having occasional
problems with opening attachments. Besides, even short
msgs are garbled by only a few forwards.

I appreciate your reply. I have/had no expectation of
fixing anything soon, but I am surprised at all the
resistance to even discussing the problem.

w3

======================

On Tue, 09 Nov 1999 09:37:29, Paul Hodges wrote:

>On Mon, 08 Nov 1999 17:51:53 -0800 (PST), Bill Wood wrote:
>
>>  I am at a total loss as to why this line length
>>  limitation, as implemented, is desireable or sensible.
>
>It may not now be either.  However, it exists, and is built into the
>most basic level of many SMTP servers and mail clients.  As a result,
>any client which is written to ignore it (e.g. Outlook) will send
>messages that have a substantial chance of arriving at their
>destinations corrupted, or of being displayed corruptly by clients
>which cannot handle them.
>
>Even if it is decided to change this (and there is no sign of that),
>there would be many years before the change could be relied on
>throughout the Internet.  And there already /is/ a mechanism defined
>for handling MS-style long-line "paragraphs" - the MIME attachment.
>
>Paul Hodges
>QBS Software Ltd
>
>
>
>
>

w3

Bill Wood
Las Vegas, NV
wwwood@lv.rmci.net

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