Jargons of Info Tech industry

[Stefaan A Eeckels]

On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 22:39:38 GMT
Roedy Green <my_email_is_posted_on_my_website at munged.invalid> wrote:

> So from an aesthetic point of view, once people learn how it works,
> CSS lets sender and receiver compromise on what the message looks
> like. No other medium gives ANY control to the receiver about how a
> message is formatted.

My mail reader renders HTML as text. Usually, that gets the message
through without the impediments the sender included.
Of course one can render anything in one's computer exactly the way one
wants, given comptence and time. Mutual agreement on a CSS is possible,
but for widespread usage it  needs to be a standardised CSS, and then
we're back in the featuritis spiral. 

> One of the most important changes in the ability to select special
> fonts for the those without prefect vision and larger fonts.

That's exactly why I don't want people to muck with the presentation of
an email. I've set up my machine to render standard ASCII emails
execatly the way I want, with the font that I can read, in a size that
optimises ease and visible text. I don't care that someone would like
to inline a 5000x3000 JPEG from their 15 megapixel camera, or render
text in white on black, or any other silly format. If they want me to
see a document in _exactly_ the way they prepared it, let them use PDF.
It's there, and it works well.

> There is also the philosophical question. When my nephew sends me a
> message, do I have a right to warp his intent even if I don't like the
> aesthetics?  That is part of his message.

That question is answered above - if your nephew wants you to see
exactly what he produced, let him use the format specifically designed
for the purpose. And yes, philosophically speaking the recipient can do
anything they like with the message, including not reading it at all.
Anything else would be preposterous. 
 
> Should my email reader fix the spelling mistakes in the emails sent me
> by angry US soldiers?  Or is that part of the message?

If you want it to do that, yes. Wheter including the corrected message
in the reply is a good idea is another question (mostly related to how
the relation is, how it should be, and how big the soldier in question
is).

> There are three different issues getting muddled together:
> 
> 1. avoiding spam

Which happens to use HTML to obfuscate the message and avoid getting
caught by filters. 

> 2. making mail from well meaning but inept friends more readable.

Who happen to use HTML because they don't have a clue.

> 3. what constitutes a good general style for general correspondence.
> How should you use rich text appropriately.

Which happens to be largely superfluous as far as conveying intent is
concerned. 

Email works well without rich text, especially when combined with
attachments that use a format sender and recipient have agreed to. 
We don't need more, and we shouldn't assume that more complex
technology equates to an improvement. Example: it's not because we can
use a gazillion typefaces in pastel colours that documents that we
should do so. 

Take care,
-- 
Stefaan
-- 
As complexity rises, precise statements lose meaning,
and meaningful statements lose precision. -- Lotfi Zadeh