At 12:29 PM -0400 6/26/2000, Dave Sill wrote:
> >No need, of course. SMTP carries the enhanced traffic just fine.
>
>I was being facetious, but I must say I think MIME is hideous, and a
>mail protocol designed for multimedia/multi-language would be *much*
>nicer.
MIME has its flaws, but it's a reasonable way to layer new
functionality in without rewriting everything from scratch. The job
of replacing SMTP would be immense. It'd sure have its advantages,
but I'm not convinced it's worth the work. it'd be fun to think
about, though. What would meta-SMTP need, and what problems with the
current SMTP ought to be fixed?
>Come to think of it, MIME's kludginess is probably the reason e-mail
>is still mostly plain text.
I don't think so. I'm not entirely sure most mail is still plain
text, but I don't have numbers on that. But it's an interesting thing
to take a look at.
Instead, I think the reality is that it's only been the last six
months or so that mailers that really handle MIME well have gotten
out there and been adopted, mostly because the net at large has
finally made the shift from 3.x release browsers to more current
releases and their associated mailers. Developers are finishing up
rounds of new releases that support this, which is why (finally) I
think email is going to slow down and stop being a moving target. The
last year's been fun to watch, but stressful to support and develop
to.
Hmm. I'm sure I can track down some numbers on this, if I can find
time. it'd be interesting to know what the message stream is without
guessing.
--
Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'"
