On Sat, Nov 02, 2002 at 04:54:10PM +0530, q u a s i wrote:
Can you please explain to me why is readability reduced if one does not break at a particular column (wraping is not the correct word here I suppose)? A good mail client will do the wraping where you with it to. Implying impoliteness here is unfair as there is yet to be explained a good reason for breaking. An imbecile mail client is no excuse.
``imbecile email client'' is a real pain when a reader does not have the option to choose his own editor within the client ... in my case, for example, when sitting on my desktop I use mutt with vim, but at other times, I have to rely on the web interface to our mail server ... I can do nothing about how the web interface behaves!
The only problem which I can think of is - in case of this reply for example, I suppose my lines will get wrapped at some column by you client which will introduce non quoted short lines. Well this is not my fault as if you use no line breaking then my reply will appear correct.
Not breaking big lines in an editor does introduce readability problems ... its really difficult to make sense of what's happening if one has to scroll horizontally. There are editors like vim which can ``wrap'' lines ... but that immediately affects navigation from line to line, and within sentences. `line' != `sentence'.
Learning to use emacs is not exactly top priority on everyone's list.
I don't understand the need for a discussion - all we are asking is for people to make a small adjustment in their mail editors, which will make life easier for a lot of people. Its a time-honoured adjustment, well-supported by lots of guidelines on netiquette.
``Go get a better <insert any tool like editor, for example>!'' That sure sounds like somethings going wrong about the spirit of the community, with a Redmond-ish touch to it.
Sameer.