On Mon, 3 Jun 2002, michael brown wrote:

>> > Oh, I think he was clearly asking for free help, most people here do.
>;-)
>> > ;-)  ;-)  <G>
>>
>> On the jallist we use <JAL> jal code goes here </JAL>.
>> Maybe set a new web standard and use <G>speaker has a wide grin around his
>> mouth speaking this words</G>?
>
><G> Using hypertext mark-ups might be a tad too much like HTML for some </G>

Not at all <g>. The smiley works like the </p> tag in html, it affects the
previous paragraph.

>This is the problem with plain text messaging, it leaves so much of the
>message between the lines.  I don't really like HTML mail much, but it sure
>is allot more expressive than plain text.  It's actually kind of ironic that
>we don't want HTML messaging, but we spend all this time inserting emoticons
>or hypertext like control blocks trying to get our body language across.
>
>What do you think?  ;-)

I think that HTML is the last last last markup you'd want for email. Just
think of an embedded ASCII schematic. Fumble with the prowser to make it
have <pre> or <source> tags, and send it hoping that everyone else's
browsers will comply. Anybody doing web   programming will tell you that
you need 100 lines of Javascript in each page to deal with browser
differences, plus spam and some viruses would have a field day.

If you want to mark up 'between the lines' you can do that literally.
There is no lack of tools that render such text. .I Roff markup for
example. Or /TeX which is {/it easier} than you think. Not to mention the
{/it pretty} Math and formulas you can typeset ($ y = 3.14*x^2*sqrt(sin(x)) $).

Or send Post Script emails which unlike HTML render precisely. Or PDF
which is essentially Post Script within a pretty container.

The only problem is to convince everyone to use your method, you not being
M$ or IBM or NASA.

Peter

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList
mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu