Philip S Tellis philip@konark.ncst.ernet.in writes:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2002 quasiabhi@softhome.net wrote:
accepet things blindly. So please give convincing reasons for the line breaking and not the ones in age old documents which I have
[...]
I agree with you about the excellent example you have given. Indeed it would be wonderful if we all had 25x80 terminals and dedicated email accounts. But most of us don't.
I would have loved to give a detailed reply but I fear it is past 1am. But I hope the few points I detail below show you the other side too.
#1. If you have had the misfortune of using web-mail you may have notice the various strange and rather extreme behaviours they sometimes exibhit.
#2. The 72 lines wrapping gets broken when viewed with anything narrower giving a harrowingly unnerving effect. The replies get even worse with some webmail clients.
#3. I believe that maximum flexibility should be given to the /user/ to decide what/how his messages look. If given a long line, for example, I can make use of the new(sheez) higher resolution displays to display up to 120 columns. I can, if I want, fill the "long" lines (like this particular email). I can fill the original message too, with only one command if it is painful (so your "/I/ am helping so /I/ rule" goes down the drain). So you see, with minimal effort I can make things the way I want them to be. The other person has least trouble.
#4. If you believe in real freedom you should not harp about things which /you/ are used to. Someone else may not actually mind trimming all the words in a long line one by one. Posting styles even if they are irritating are not actually causing any harm. Large amounts of unwanted/irrelevant/untrimmed material /does/ cause wastage of resources and hence harm. Also I again point you to #1. & #2. which often go together.
#5. Until recently I have been using Eudora which AFAIK does not wrap(fill) lines. I don't recollect anyone having any trouble over it at all. I have over 2 years of ILUG-BOM correspondence with me.
If everyone has a line length of approx 72 characters, it allows for up to three or four levels of quoting.
Like here, even if you fill the lines, I have to do a bit of juggling to trim parts which are in the middle.
Sure, lines will get smaller as they go along, but that's a Good Thing, without which, the Story of Mel wouldn't have quite the same effect.
I don't see any relevance of SoM here.
quasi