Re: McCoy is Right! New Mail Format to Start Now.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Don't freak with the address... I'm moving. Check the sig if you're paranoid. Tim's wise words were:
The issue is not unwillingness to use new technology, it is, rather, the issue of "stable attractors." That is, what can I/we reasonably expect others to also have. Clearly if I issued my paper to the list in FrameMaker format, or Acrobat format, or even TeX format, only a few people would be able to read it. Fewer still would actually take the steps needed to actually display the paper.
Standards, standards, standards!
I don't think the minor extensions to e-mail (loosely called "MIME," though MIME serves other functions besides attaching graphics) are worth the effort, frankly. Most of the MIME messages (the ones that tell me about "ISO 558972 fonts" and "Press any key to return") don't seem to warrant the effort....I think in 90%+ of the cases people simply send messages as MIME by default, not becuase non-ASCII stuff is included.
Well, ignoring the fact that MIME appears to be infiltrating the Web as well... I would differ with your analysis of MIME's lack of usefulness. It does provide a possible way to integrate PGP into the mail/Web landscape (from a crypto standpoint). Multimedia I'm not so sure about; I think the big draw to MIME will come when Person A drags and drops a spreadsheet into a MIME mailer and sends the message to Person B, who then clicks on an icon to pull up the spreadsheet. But I digress... I'd say, however, that MIME isn't a done deal yet, though it's getting there. Until it's there, it's probably a bad idea. It's been my experience that many mailers are just MIME-compliant enough to cause their users lots of headaches. (As I write this, I notice I'm using Eudora, which MIMEs all its stuff. Oh, well; I hope this message isn't too much trouble for y'all...)
If we make the leap, I say make the leap to the Web:
cave drawings --> text --> e-mail --> Web
(By Web I of course mean the whole ball of wax involving HTML/HTTP/etc.)
This is not a rejection of new technology, just a wise selection of which technology to bet on.
I vote for MIME-encoded cave drawings. :-) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLvCxGjER5KvPRd0NAQH+bgP8C5oOpT0Cgzh0m3yXYZmsvpaZqB5FuZUt ZFQAHkKrIhaJ39IBhcJXv9Xmda/Jhp2wluvMDKlyzDxG/lvHJnr+h4cTJEUq6H57 bWPuQO2MBuBViOE77GFKreFzyLeamidlIlva3cIm/m/eYQXcF8l5qsNRB6O5kGe0 wq97dXfrVQ8= =OyM1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Jeff Licquia wrote:
Well, ignoring the fact that MIME appears to be infiltrating the Web as well...
I would differ with your analysis of MIME's lack of usefulness. It does provide a possible way to integrate PGP into the mail/Web landscape (from a crypto standpoint). Multimedia I'm not so sure about; I think the big draw to MIME will come when Person A drags and drops a spreadsheet into a MIME mailer and sends the message to Person B, who then clicks on an icon to pull up the spreadsheet. But I digress...
My issue has not been with MIME as a transport mechanism, but non-ASCII content, which clearly most folks can't read.
I'd say, however, that MIME isn't a done deal yet, though it's getting there. Until it's there, it's probably a bad idea. It's been my experience that many mailers are just MIME-compliant enough to cause their users lots of headaches.
Amen! This is the same point several people have made in follow-ups. The whole bit about transferring spreadsheets is nice--we've been able to do it on the Mac for many years, provided both sides have the right spreadsheet programs of course--but it's not of much use in communicating as we do on a mailing list. And "true MIME" is not what many so-called "MIMEs" apparently are.
(As I write this, I notice I'm using Eudora, which MIMEs all its stuff. Oh, well; I hope this message isn't too much trouble for y'all...)
It wasn't marked as Mime, and it gave me no trouble. Perhaps becuase looking at your headers reveals: X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I think the Content-Type field is the key. Is this the answer? Not completely. Part of the whole "complexity" issue I've been railing about (and echoed by such noted Neo-Luddites as Phil Zimmermann, John Markoff, and others) is that increasing numbers of messages need special processing, hang up my automatic downloading (as when my Eudora hangs in the middle of a long transfer, asking for instructions on how to handle an exception or special case, and Netcom hangs me up, forcing me to start over later and then babysit the transfer process so I can be there when Eudora hollers for help), and generally complicate our lives more than they help. Would Einstein have wasted his time trying to configure his mailer so he could see Amanda's GIF? (No offense meant, Amanda.)) ****AUTOMATIC TRANSFER OF CYPHERNOMICON COMPLETE**** Error 51: HARD DISK IS FULL Automatic Action 32A: Delete least-recently changed files. ****STARTING DELETIONS NOW***** Do you wish to continue? (y/n)
Timothy C. May says:
My issue has not been with MIME as a transport mechanism, but non-ASCII content, which clearly most folks can't read.
Far from clear, Tim. Last time I checked, almost no one I communicated with regularly was using a machine without a pixmapped display. That means that all standing in the way of them being able to read non-ascii is the right font sitting on disk, and a program that groks it. Perry
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <9412161424.AA02172@snark.imsi.com>, you wrote:
Timothy C. May says:
My issue has not been with MIME as a transport mechanism, but non-ASCII content, which clearly most folks can't read.
Far from clear, Tim. Last time I checked, almost no one I communicated with regularly was using a machine without a pixmapped display. That means that all standing in the way of them being able to read non-ascii is the right font sitting on disk, and a program that groks it.
The right font on disk and a program that groks it. Aye, there's the rub. What makes this debate at once so fascinating and so frustrating is that both sides are correct. Yes, MIME is the standard that has emerged for exchanging non-ascii-text data via email, and yes it's a damned good one, properly implemented. And yes, anyone with the resources to do so ought to connect to their Internet service provider through a SLIP connection and be able to move through the Web with a good graphical browser and view their mail through their MIME-compliant mail program. If you can do it, then it is without a doubt the way to go. But at the same time Tim is right, too. SLIP connections, quality Web browsers, and MIME-compliant email packages are the high end of Net access today. They demand either an investment of money (intelligently spent) or an investment of effort to get the stuff up and running and to get the know-how needed to do so. Either of these can be more than many people who are now Internet users can afford. I think the people who are berating Tim for his apparent stubbornness should stop and think for a bit. It's not a simple matter of "We're right, so Tim must be wrong." The people who can look at the matter and see how the MIME advocates and Tim May are both right, without seeing a contradiction, will have a broader, deeper insight into the underlying problems, and be able to come up with solutions that reach farther. | For me, to be a feminist is to answer the Alan Bostick | question "Are women human?" with a yes. abostick@netcom.com | finger for PGP public key | Katha Pollitt, REASONABLE CREATURES Key fingerprint: | 50 22 FB 46 41 A3 17 9D F7 33 FF E1 4E 1C 89 79 +legal_kludge=off -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 iQB1AgUBLvH6FOVevBgtmhnpAQG/5AL/V8/wQC4ZVykdstm2hz3yutSi21CqXRQV +myk42dAO0+4YSgV1pSPEwSrfni2NKZa+HE9bzF8Cl2c+In5eb1hdkCYkfn3VlzV GsJyPBjAcUrHD626Wm18iBEYiD3cnDT9 =9vp0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Alan Bostick says:
SLIP connections, quality Web browsers, and MIME-compliant email packages are the high end of Net access today.
Hardly. I was at a party last friday night where the host had a T1 into his home, and numerous workstations on the home network. That counts as "high end", I'd say. Running a router, firewall and a network of workstations does indeed require skill. However...
They demand either an investment of money (intelligently spent) or an investment of effort to get the stuff up and running and to get the know-how needed to do so.
Given that you can get a SLIP account just as easily as a shell account (i.e. call a provider) and that terminal software is not notably simpler to configure than SLIP or PPP software (anyone who thinks otherwise should try explaining what "seven bits, even parity" or "vt100 emulation" means to a liberal arts major) I'd say that the arguments being made are specious. They are based on the conjectures of people who haven't tried, rather than on the experience of those who have. With a package like "Chameleon", getting a PPP connection going is a matter of typing in a phone number and a couple of other magic values to a pretty friendly on-screen form -- which is more or less the level of effort needed to get a terminal emulator up and running. It might be different effort -- and certain people like Tim who are set in their ways might think of the tiny difference as a huge barrier -- but its not a particularly large effort. As for the money, these programs are not notably more expensive than commercial terminal emulators. I'd say, in fact, that running via SLIP or PPP is a SMALLER investment in time and effort because for the naive user running native applications on their machine with the native help and windowing systems running is probably a much more comfortable situation than trying to run "elm" via a weird terminal emulator program. And yes, I've some experience at what the naive users are like. There are now boxes you can get from your local bookstore that contain everything you need -- software, online signup, etc -- to get a PPP or SLIP connection to the net. I'd say that the kvetching is all just plain wrong. Perry
participants (4)
-
abostick＠netcom.com -
jalicqui＠prairienet.org -
Perry E. Metzger -
tcmay＠netcom.com