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Why no HTML [LONG] (was Re: I sent HTML. I deserve a spanking....)
Dancing on a volcano, Dusty Volume <marquis at icx_net> said:
>Chris the Anal rententive nazi, sez: ;P
Hey...someone has to uphold standards around here.
>Gosh Chris, ever get bent out of shape over something? I mean why is
>that sort of thing not allowed in emails? Because some people don't
>have the proper software to read it? I don't know about anyone else,
>but I my netscape *always* puts it in the proper format anyway... I
>mean I have a friend who never mails without putting large purple fonts
>with orange backgrounds --or somesuch other nonsense... I have just
>gotten used to it. I would venture to say the day is coming when all
>email clients will be able to decipher and properly display all mime and
>html coding!!
All right, you opened the can of worms, Markus. Got a fork handy?
Here's the story as I understand it.
Email and Usenet were designed (back in the 70's) as a handy way to
move blocks of text messages along to someone else, who could then
read it. SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) was developed to move
these messages back and forth. SMTP is still the de facto standard
for moving email around today. HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is a
relatively recent development in the grand scheme of things - it came
along in the late 80's/early 90's. Now keep in mind that a message
will pass through many machines between point A and point B.
Here's the header from a private email sent to me by listie Dave
Cousineau. (hope you don't mind, Dave)
**begin quoted header**
Return-Path: <davec at pads_com>
Received: from mail.pads.com ([199.173.159.5]) by
hurricane.columbus.rr.com
(Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID#
0-53939U80000L80000S0V35)
with SMTP id com for <cemery at columbus_rr.com>;
Fri, 2 Apr 1999 14:35:49 -0500
Received: from news.pads.com by mail.pads.com
via smtpd (for hurricane.columbus.rr.com [204.210.252.249])
with SMTP; 2 Apr 1999 19:37:46 UT
Received: from pads.com ([200.100.200.185]) by news.pads.com
(Netscape Messaging Server 3.6) with ESMTP id 252
for <cemery at columbus_rr.com>; Fri, 2 Apr 1999 14:37:37 -0500
Message-ID: <37051C25.6EE661D9 at pads_com>
Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 14:36:05 -0500
From: "Dave Cousineau" <davec at pads_com>
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (Win98; U)
X-Accept-Language: en
MIME-Version: 1.0
**end quoted**
This is pretty straightforward. You see that Dave's SMTP server, in
this case Netscape Messaging Server 3.6, passed along a certain
message with messageID 37051C25.6EE661D9 at pads_com to *my* SMTP server
at such and such a time, etc whatever.
Pretty simple, right?
Not exactly. Here's a traceroute to Dave's SMTP server from my desk.
**begin quoted**
(C)Copyright Microsoft Corp 1981-1996.
C:\WIN95>tracert mail.pads.com
Tracing route to mail.pads.com [199.173.159.5]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 * * * Request timed out.
2 36 ms 34 ms 26 ms MCI-UU-Fiber.columbus.rr.com
[204.210.252.1]
3 47 ms 35 ms 52 ms 587.Hssi3-0.GW1.CLE1.ALTER.NET
[157.130.98.217]
4 45 ms 57 ms 66 ms 142.ATM3-0.XR2.CHI6.ALTER.NET
[146.188.209.46]
5 71 ms 52 ms 84 ms 190.ATM3-0.TR2.CHI4.ALTER.NET
[146.188.209.6]
6 51 ms 53 ms 48 ms 106.ATM7-0.TR2.EWR1.ALTER.NET
[146.188.136.126]
7 49 ms 47 ms 48 ms 296.ATM6-0.XR2.BOS1.ALTER.NET
[146.188.179.137]
8 52 ms 50 ms 51 ms 190.ATM8-0-0.GW2.BOS1.ALTER.NET
[146.188.176.245]
9 66 ms 51 ms 47 ms 199.173.159.1
10 71 ms 72 ms 53 ms mail.pads.com [199.173.159.5]
Trace complete.
**end quoted**
As you can see, there are at least 8 stops between here and there that
the message has to be transferred. These names and addresses aren't
necessarily servers, either. They could be bridges or routers.
Now the reason that HTML doesn't break this system right off the bat
is that at the root of it, HTML is basically plain text. It has
certain tags (<tag>stuff</tag>) that tell special software how to
treat the text.
Reason #1 not to use HTML in text-based mediums:
-size and bandwidth problems.
A 5 line text message can be blown up to over 70 lines of HTML. This
alone should be reason enough to give a moment's pause. If everyone
started sending messages that are now several hundred percent larger
than yesterday, just think what that would do to all the servers and
internet backbone (i.e. physical cabling) that's been around for 25
years.
Reason #2 not to use HTML in text-based mediums:
-machine readability vs. human readability
Plain text is human readable. This message is plain text. Any person
using *any* mail program on *any* platform can open it and read it.
Someone (like Mr. Neds-Fox, for example) who's stuck using an older
UNIX character-based (i.e. no GUI) email client sees stuff like this
when you send HTML:
Apologies to everyone for this, but it's necessary for the
explanation.
Small excerpt taken from an MSNBC news story:
</html>
<FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva" SIZE=1>
Five-year-old Rachel is in fair condition.
</FONT>
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<TD WIDTH=23></TD>
<TD WIDTH=361> <IMG SRC="images/Branvic2.jpg" WiDtH=205
HeIgHt=166 VSPACE=5 ALIGN=left
ALT="" ><FONT SIZE=3 FACE="TIMES NEW ROMAN, GEORGIA, TIMES"
color="#000000">
Documents filed Friday in Union County Common
Pleas Court by prosecutors say the fire started because either Crider
or Brannon left cigarette butts, lighters and matches in bed or
elsewhere in the upstairs part of the home. <BR>
The debris caused the fire to spread and
Brannon left the children unattended while the fire smoldered,
according to the documents. <BR>
A four-year-old child and a 23-month-old child
died from their injuries. A five-year-old girl remains in the hospital
in fair condition. <BR>
Crider entered a not guilty plea to the
charges. Brannon is scheduled to appear in court next week.<BR>
**end excerpt**
That's what shows up on the screen. Obviously, this is NOT
human-readable. Other clients may just save it as an attachment,
which means the user needs to open a whole separate program (a
browser) and open the file just to read it. That's a lot of hassle to
read a message.
I'm going to go ahead and stop at two, because you really don't need
any more reasons than these.
If you say that
a) Those are just old UNIX things - who cares about that anyway?
b) my email client lets me do it, why shouldn't I?
or c) Shut up, Chris, you're babbling again.
Then I answer:
a) Hey...UNIX *is* the internet for the most part. Get used to the
idea. You might not use it, you might not see it, but it's there
making everything work.
b) not everyone has the latest and greatest email clients, and if you
continue using HTML in a text-based medium, then you're just being a
selfish, inconsiderate asshole.
c) you're probably right.
There you go, Markus. That's why HTML is just NOT done in email or
Usenet.
One other thing - you mentioned MIME. MIME is a standard defined to
send binary attachments through the text-based system. MIME is ok for
private emails and the *.binaries hierarchy of usenet, but *NOT* on a
listserv or the rest of usenet.
Thank you, drive through.
--
NP: Rush - _A Farewell To Kings_
ICQ #: 1388556 *** AIM: ChrisEmery
Floyd Code: v1.2a r+d>s TW 0/0/ FD 0- 0 Meddle 4 0 21.8% <28jan99>
Pants are tools of the antichrist.
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