Philip S Tellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> On Sat, 30 Nov 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > accepet things blindly. So please give convincing reasons for the
> > line breaking and not the ones in age old documents which I have
>
>
[...]
I agree with you about the excellent example you have given. Indeed
it would be wonderful if we all had 25x80 terminals and dedicated
email accounts. But most of us don't.
I would have loved to give a detailed reply but I fear it is past 1am.
But I hope the few points I detail below show you the other side too.
#1. If you have had the misfortune of using web-mail you may have
notice the various strange and rather extreme behaviours they
sometimes exibhit.
#2. The 72 lines wrapping gets broken when viewed with anything
narrower giving a harrowingly unnerving effect. The replies get even
worse with some webmail clients.
#3. I believe that maximum flexibility should be given to the /user/ to
decide what/how his messages look. If given a long line, for example,
I can make use of the new(sheez) higher resolution displays to display
up to 120 columns. I can, if I want, fill the "long" lines (like this
particular email). I can fill the original message too, with only one
command if it is painful (so your "/I/ am helping so /I/ rule" goes
down the drain). So you see, with minimal effort I can make things
the way I want them to be. The other person has least trouble.
#4. If you believe in real freedom you should not harp about things
which /you/ are used to. Someone else may not actually mind trimming
all the words in a long line one by one. Posting styles even if they
are irritating are not actually causing any harm. Large amounts of
unwanted/irrelevant/untrimmed material /does/ cause wastage of
resources and hence harm. Also I again point you to #1. & #2. which
often go together.
#5. Until recently I have been using Eudora which AFAIK does not
wrap(fill) lines. I don't recollect anyone having any trouble over
it at all. I have over 2 years of ILUG-BOM correspondence with
me.
> If everyone has a line length of approx 72 characters, it allows for
> up to three or four levels of quoting.
Like here, even if you fill the lines, I have to do a bit of juggling to
trim parts which are in the middle.
> Sure, lines will get smaller
> as they go along, but that's a Good Thing, without which, the Story
> of Mel wouldn't have quite the same effect.
I don't see any relevance of SoM here.
quasi
_______________________________________________
http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
