RE: HTML in MIME messages

Rick Troth <troth@rice.edu> Wed, 16 November 1994 04:43 UTC

Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 19:51:03 -0600
Sender: ietf-archive-request@IETF.CNRI.Reston.VA.US
From: Rick Troth <troth@rice.edu>
Subject: RE: HTML in MIME messages
To: "Mark K. Joseph" <mjoseph@mailman.aac.twg.com>
Cc: ietf-822@dimacs.rutgers.edu
In-Reply-To: <9411151946.AA13949@dimacs.rutgers.edu>
Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9411151938.A15455-0100000@is.rice.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII"

> Having looked at several HTML examples it seems to me
> that HTML should be placed under a
> "Content-Type: application/html" field for the following reasons:
 
	It's a subjective judgement call.   I think they got it right. 
 
> 1) HTML really does require machine processing to properly
>    present the information it encodes.  For example, HTML can
>    contain an indication of where text is BOLD or italics.
>    Netscape even includes a font size definition. 
 
	So? 
 
> 2) HTML can contain URLs (or URIs) which require machine processing ... 
> 3) The notation used in HTML is meaningless to the unsophisticated ... 
 
	So?   So?   You haven't proven that HTML or text/enriched 
are useless.   If the URLs are there,  that doesn't make it useless 
to the unsophisticated user.   If the markup tags are foreign,  that 
doesn't render useless the bulk of the message.   Mark, parenthesis is 
markup,  yet I think you'll agree it's quite human readable. 
 
> 4) HTML is a mark up language that "just" happens to be in ASCII. 
>    If it didn't use ASCII then we wouldn't even be having this 
>    discussion.
 
	[sigh]   We probably WOULD still be having it. 
 
> I vote for treating HTML like postscript--in an application context
> type.
 
	Absolutely, positively, NO.   (this is 1994;  I reserve the 
right to change my opinion come HTML 3 in 199x) 
 
> Comments?
 
	As I said at the start,  it's a judgement call. 
HTML simply looks nicer than RTF.   Personally,  I'd just as soon have 
RTF be under text/ because it is  (as far as I can tell)  plain text 
canonical[ized].   But I can live with it as it is now and I agree 
with the thinking that  "RTF is ugly".   [my words] 
 
	But an answer may lay with the term  "markup".   HTML, SGML, 
original GML,  and text/enriched  are all "markup" languages. 
The idea (I get) is that you take some plain text and  "mark it up" 
for later machine processing.   It *starts* from plain text.   While 
RTF (as far as I know) never starts from plain text and wasn't designed 
to be human generable,  let alone human readable.   RTF isn't a markup. 
(did someone call RTF a markup?) 
 
> -Mark Joseph
>  Wollongong Advanced Applications Center
>  Santa Cruz, CA.
>  mjoseph@mailman.aac.twg.com
>  markjoseph@delphi.com
 
-- 
Rick Troth <troth@rice.edu>, Rice University, Information Systems

RE: HTML in MIME messages Steve Dorner
RE: HTML in MIME messages Rick Troth