From: Seth Breidbart (sethb@panix.com)
Date: Tue Jun 03 2003 - 12:55:52 CDT
John Stanley <stanley@peak.org> wrote:
> Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk):
>
>>Yes, things do break. Much existing software that sorts articles by
>>Subject and other similar things assumes that coping with one "Re: " will
>>suffice.
>
> I am not concerned in the least with software that ignores the
> one header defined for threading messages just so it can guess at how
> to thread things. That software is, itself, broken. So what if it cannot
> handle the kludge that is has been relying on instead of the best
> information?
There's other software (admittedly, broken) that breaks the "one
header defined for threading messages". It exists. It gets used. It
will continue to exist and be used. Therefore, I want my software to
(be able to) do the best thing possible when interacting with the
result of that (broken) software. That means avoiding "Re: Re: "
>>No, it just recognizes that many existing agents _choose_ to bother with
>>one.
>
> What broken software _chooses_ to do does not merit MUST or MUST NOT
> language.
That depends on how you want to interact with actual reality.
Seth