quibbling about WHAT?) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 09:04:29 -0500 Organization: EHS Company Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk > >Suppose for the sake of argument that the message had contained > >characters outside the US-ASCII repertoire (in a domain name or > >elsewhere). > > If the text switches from one character set to another, then no, it is > unlikely the processing software will handle that well. Exactly. Text that contains UTF-8 IDNs is likely to be stored as an UTF-8 body part. Conversely, text that contains ACE IDNs (which must be transliterated) is not likely to be stored as an ACE body part since ACE is not suitable for MIME. > The real point is that you appear to be assuming a much more simplified > and consistent processing environment for characters, across > applications, than actually exists. Conversely, you appear to be assuming that everybody will want to write ACE-exception-handling code that scans through body parts, tries to find a string that looks like ACE, transliterate it, and redisplay the body part. Give me a break. Think about this: nobody will be able to explain how ACE works over email. Everytime you give an example, the software transliterates it. Oh so now we need exception handling for the exception handling. ACE is needed for backwards compatibility. That is totally separate from whether or not it is useful or usable or good for future usage models. You shouldn't get them confused.
