On Friday, January 17, 2003, 6:48:29 PM, Thomas Fernandez ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> HTML was invented by James Bernhard > Lee at CERN in Switzerland. That would be Tim Bernes Lee. > HTML is the "HyperText Markup Language" > and links documents via the hypertext technology. Some people say he > therefore invented the WWW (thus it *is* intended for web pages), but > Xanadu claims to have had the first idea (of a world-wide web - but > they didn't know anything about HTML at the time). <rant> Xanadu was a horrible idea: it provided for securing links and content with copyright protection. Imagine the web: "Please insert coin, then click the hyperlink." It was its own death, since IIRC, Ted Nelson was apparently unwilling to make the design and protocols open. Berners-Lee could have patented his invention too, but chose to keep it open instead, and the net result is there for everyone to see. </rant> > I won't argue who > invented the WWW. But HTML was never meant to be part of email, which > at the time when HTML was created didn't even know anything but plain > text. Absolutely. HTML not only makes email unreadable to lots of people, it is the main source and reason for email-related security breaches these days, and it makes a message two to three times larger than it would be n plain text only, meaning that anyone who pays by the minute (as most of us folks in Europe do) or by bytes transferred is incurring three times the cost of a plain text email. Recommended reading, short and sweet: http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil.shtml .marek jedlinski -- No ads, no nags freeware: http://keynote.prv.pl (KeyNote, PhoneDeck, KookieJar, Oubliette) "Most of what I've learned over the years has come from signatures." (Larry Wall) ________________________________________________ Current version is 1.62 | "Using TBUDL" information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
