Re: VS vs. P14 (was Re: Indic Devanagari Query)

From: jameskass@att.net
Date: Wed Feb 05 2003 - 19:33:21 EST

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    .
    Peter Constable wrote,

    > Sure, but why do we want to place so much demand on plain text when the
    > vast majority of content we interchange is in some form of marked-up or
    > rich text? Let's let plain text be that -- plain -- and look to the markup
    > conventions that we've invested so much in and that are working for us to
    > provide the kinds of thing that we designed markup for in the first place.
    > Besides, a "plain-text" file that begins and ends with p14 tags is a
    > marked-up file, whether someone calls it "plain text" or not. We have
    > little or no infrastructure for handling that form of markup, and a large
    > and increasing amount of infrastructure for handling the more typical forms
    > of markup.

    We place so much demand on plain text because we use plain text.

    We continue to advance from the days when β€œplain text” meant ASCII only
    rendered in bitmapped monospaced monochrome.

    We don’t rely on mark-up or higher protocols to distinguish between different
    European styles of quotation marks. We no longer need proprietary rich-text
    formats and font switching abilities to be able to display Greek and Latin
    text from the same file.

    > I repeat, plain text remains legible without anything indicating which eng
    > (or whatever) may be preferred by the author, and (since the requirement
    > for plain text is legibility) therefore this is not really an argument for
    > using p14 language tags. IMO.

    Is legibility the only requirement of plain text? Might additional
    requirements
    include appropriate, correct encoding and correct display?

    To illustrate a legible plain text run which displays as intended (all things
    being
    equal) yet is not appropriately encoded (this e-mail is being sent as plain
    text
    UTF-8):

    𝑰𝒇 π’šπ’π’– 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅 π’•π’‰π’Šπ’” π’Žπ’†π’”π’”π’‚π’ˆπ’†...
    π’šπ’π’– π’Žπ’‚π’š π’˜π’Šπ’”π’‰ 𝒕𝒐 π’‹π’π’Šπ’ 𝑴𝑨𝑨𝑨* 𝒂𝒕
    𝓫𝓡π“ͺ𝓱𝓫𝓡π“ͺ𝓱𝓫𝓡π“ͺ𝓱𝓭𝓸𝓽𝓬𝓸𝓢

    (*𝗠𝖺𝗍𝗁 π—”π—…π—‰π—π–Ίπ–»π–Ύπ—π—Œ π—”π–»π—Žπ—Œπ–Ύπ—‹π—Œ π—”π—‡π—ˆπ—‡π—’π—†π—ˆπ—Žπ—Œ)

    Clearly, correct and appropriate encoding (as well as legibility) should be a
    requirement of plain text. Is correct display also a valid requirement for
    plain text?

    It is for some...

    Respectfully,

    James Kass
    .

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