for me it is less important, who invented it (MS or some other proprietary vendor), but much more important how widely it is supported. Or in other words, for me this is a practical issue, not a philosophical/political one. For example, PDF is pretty much an Adobe thing, but it is widely used and supported;. RTF was always widely supported amongst word processors from all kinds of vendors. While I haven't used RTF on Linux, I knew it worked quite well for non MS products (or for older versions of MS products) and it worked well on the Mac, too.
Another analogy (sensible to some of us older types) would be the AT command set for modems, initially introduced by Hayes modems (i.e. originally not a "standard"), but widely adopted and used as a common modem "de-facto" standard. This was tremendously useful and still is to those using dialup connections.
The .doc and .swx formats and word perfect's format ( I forgot the file extension), and other higher end formats are much richer and more tricky to get right, and therefore tend to cause more problems.
-------
re: html email
I agree, as with everything, HTML can be abused, but it sure is nice for bolding, italics, code snippets, and I find it useful in emails for making nicely formatted lists with bullets and sub-bullets. With variable width fonts being used by many email clients (since they generally look nicer for regular text), it makes bulleted lists (especially when the text is longer than a line) harder to do nicely. Of course the minimalist / lowest common denominator approach is always the safest and most inclusive, but it sure extracts a price.
Please understand, I'm not vehemently arguing for using html in our emails on this mailing list, but "we have always done it this way" arguments tend to make me deeply suspicious. Reasonable behavior and rules probably should be dictated by the then current demographics/desires of the target audience or community. After all, I have stopped typing messages in caps, ever since I had technology allowing me to do that, too :)
Now I'm just really curious what the demographics of our mailing list here really are. So far on this thread, I have been reading historical and anecdotal reasoning, but very little hard core demographic/statistical reasoning. I'm really curious, how many regular mailing list participants (not just lurking members) as of this point in time - after all, it is May 2004, not 1992 :) - use text only email clients for participating in this list. I'm ready to be surprised :)
...Niels
p.s. I can't help smiling at the irony for me as probably one of the older - age, not maturity :) - members of this list, I'm reading messages from likely much younger members - especially in the revolutionary world-changing Linux community - arguing against change. What is this world coming to? :)
Curtis Sloan wrote:
On Wed May 12 2004 14:43, Niels Voll wrote:
<snip>
For resume's or other cross organization or cross platform communication
I use RTF or PDF, or even HTML to create rather nicely formatted text,
good enough for a very nice looking CV anytime. And yes, I have used RTF
(rather than doc) even when sending from MS Office to another known MS
Office shop.
Isn't RTF (Rich Text Format) a Microsoft invention, too? Not that it makes a difference to me, I send plain text along with every .doc I send. :-)
...Niels
p.s. Since I'm still relatively new here, does anyone know, what's the
last time, the question of text vs. html for this mailing list has been
seriously examined, e.g. discussion on the list, or maybe a web-poll on
clug.ca? It's not that big of a deal to me either way, I'm just honestly
really surprised, since personally I have used html capable email
clients for many years now, and can't even imagine using a text only
capable email client anymore :)
In the hands of "trustworthy" users HTML e-mail can be a wonderful thing. It's adds another dimension to expression that isn't available in plain text. But rarely does the implementation resemble the concept. I personally have never received an HTML e-mail that either:
a) I didn't want (i.e. junk e-mail). b) Could have been just as readably formatted in text.
I think the bottom-line reasoning derives from the fact that e-mail is a form of casual correspondence -- i.e. written word -- and colors, graphics, et al. rarely add to the efficacy of such correspondence. The exception, of course, being those who take control of the technology and use it effectively. Generally speaking, though , most people don't effectively use complex technology, including geeks, whether by lack of awareness or necessity (I personally write terrible HTML and while I could learn to use HTML effectively on the web and in e-mail, it's not very high on my priority list).
The end result being that the common denominator is often closest to simplicity and hence clarity -- in this case, plain text.
But don't let me speak for everyone! :-)
My 2 cents, Curtis
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