Re: format=flowed : why not use HTML?

[kaih@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Kai Henningsen)]

jwz@xxxxxxxxxxx (Jamie Zawinski)  wrote on 20.08.98 in <35DC6BCC.7476C883@xxxxxxxxxxx>:

> Chris Newman wrote:

> > In hindsight, we should have developed a markup language using tricks like
> > _italics_, *bold* and >excerpt for email, so that the markup language
> > itself would be plain text.  Even that would require style-run merging,
> > but it probably would have worked.  Unfortunately, it's too late to
> > introduce something like that now.
>
> Brad Templeton (I think) proposed something like that years and years
> ago, and came to the conclusion that it didn't really work.  Then later

Well, AFAICT ist's used very successfully in a local BBS network. I think  
there exist numerous clients that don't do too bad a job of parsing it.

It's not perfect, but it sure beats both nothing and HTML. *And*, since  
it's (A) so easy to create and parse manually, and (B) lots of people  
already use it manually, _it is already deployed_!

(And my current client does convert four instances in this mail into  
highlighted text (not that much it can do with DOS text mode), for  
example.)

I wonder if it would be useful to write up an informational RFC on that  
...

MfG Kai