For The Record: HTML Email on the Internet; RFC 2557

[Randall R Schulz]

Max,

At 16:26 2003-04-10, you wrote:
>Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > To Whom It May Concern,
> >
> > The IETF publishes this standard for electronic mail on the Internet
> > using HTML and even supports resource references in the HTML whose
> > targets (images, sounds, etc.) can be incorporated into the same MIME
> > message as the HTML body.
> >
> > In my opinion, it's simply foolish to anchor electronic mail in the
> > pre-markup, pre-media days of text-only electronic communication.
>
>There's nothing wrong with HTML mail when used tastefully and in a way which
>enhances communication.
>
>Unfortunately, a lot (most?) of the time, HTML mail is used in such a way
>that it detracts from the content of the message and is simply a needless
>bandwidth sucker.

As to taste, the pattern that typically presents itself is that when a 
new, richer mode of expression becomes widely available is that they 
get a little crazy at first. Soon enough, however, they settle down to 
reasonably moderate usage. Desktop publishing showed this phenomenon 
with excessive use of multiple fonts, font variation and other 
goo-gaws. You don't see much of that any more.

I'm unsympathetic to the bandwidth waste argument. There's abundant 
bandwidth on the Internet (in fact, there's a lot of dark fiber out 
there just waiting to be used). I have only a dial-up modem and I have 
no trouble doing the usual Internet browsing (in fact, probably more 
than usual, and I'm a bit of troller, actually--as in trolling for 
resources as a fisherman trolls for fish, that is). On top of my Web 
use, I get upward of 500 email messages each day including the 
distributions of 25 mailing lists. Except for the 100 or so that are 
spam (I kid you not), I save them all.

By far most of the HTML mail is UCE. Some of that is grotesque (not for 
its message content, but for its presentation) but even the spam is 
mostly decent HTML. For the few pieces of mail that I actually solicit 
in HTML mode (newsletters such as those published by the Java Developer 
Connection or WinXPnews or the New Scientist newsletter) I enable the 
Microsoft viewer in Eudora. Otherwise for simple font variations, 
bullets and indents, Eudora's built-in rendering is fine (though not 
without its glitches).

A decent dial-up modem (by which I mean a well-designed v.92 modem) 
will compress HTML to the point where 10 to 11 kilobytes per second 
throughput is readily achieved. This is almost twice the speed that 
most of the links in the original ARPAnet used (not that it's very 
significant--I just think it's interesting).


>Max.


Randall Schulz 


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