Mark E. Shoulson wrote,
> This discussion has been very interesting, really. I've heard what I
> thought were very good points and relevant arguments from both/all
> sides, and I confess to not being sure which I actually prefer.
It's subjective, really. It depends on how one views plain-text and
one's expectations for its future. Should plain-text be progressive,
regressive, or stagnant? Because those are really the only choices.
And opinions differ.
Most of us involved with Unicode probably expect plain-text to be around
for quite a while. The figure bandied about in the past on this list is
"a thousand years". Only a society of mindless drones would cling to
the past for a millennium. So, many of us probably figure that
strictures laid down now will be overridden as a matter of course, over
time.
Unicode will probably be around for awhile, but the barrier between
plain- and rich-text has already morphed significantly in the relatively
short period of time it's been around.
I became attracted to Unicode about twenty years ago. Because Unicode
opened up entire /realms/ of new vistas relating to what could be done
with computer plain text. I hope this trend continues.
