Jargons of Info Tech industry

[T Beck]

Mike Schilling wrote:
> "Rich Teer" <rich.teer at rite-group.com> wrote in message
> news:Pine.SOL.4.58.0508250932360.5888 at zen.rite-group.com...
> > On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, Mike Schilling wrote:
> >
> >> Another advantage is that evewry internet-enabled computer today already
> >> comes with an HTML renderer (AKA browser), so that a message saved to a
> >> file
> >> can be read very easily.
> >
> > I think you're missing the point: email and Usenet are, historically have
> > been, and should always be, plain text mediums.
>
> Gosh, if you say they should be, there's no point trying to have an
> intelligent discussion, is there?

Not to mention that e-mail is practically to the point where it is
{not} a plain text medium.  I notice this especially in a corporate
environment (where, at least where I work, I get at least 10 times the
number of e-mails at work than I do on my private account) HTML e-mail
is the de-facto standard.  I have a tendancy to send out plain text
e-mail, and I'm practically the only one, as HTML formatting is the
default for the mail client on every corporate machine at my job.

But let's not forget that most people which send me e-mail personally
also have HTML tags in e-mail...  So if e-mail {is} a plain text
medium, somebody needs to tell the general public, because I think they
must've missed a memo.

If we argue that people are evolving the way e-mail is handled, and
adding entire new feature sets to something which has been around since
the earliest days of the internet, then that's perfectly feasable.
HTML itself has grown.  We've also added Javascript and Shockwave.  The
websites of today don't even resemble the websites of 10 years ago,
e-mail of today only remotely resembles the original, so the argument
that usenet should never change seems a little heavy-handed and
anachronistic.

--T Beck