From: John Stanley (stanley@peak.org)
Date: Mon Apr 12 2004 - 13:22:47 CDT
(reason: 452 Insufficient system storage)
Seth Breidbart (sethb@panix.com):
> What do you mean by "interpret"?
Exactly what the english language means.
>I don't know of any software that
>attempts to treat a header as high-level code and execute it without
>compiling.
That is a very limited definition of "interpret" you have. I'm not limited
by that.
>Next, in two consecutive sentences you first state that software
>SHOULD NOT attempt to interpret something, then state *how* software
>should interpret it. I see an inherent contradiction.
Assuming you intended the same antecedant for both "something" and "it",
then you are lying. I said "do not interpret 'Re: '" and then said "DO
interpret an unstructured header as such." But you knew that, didn't you?
>There's nothing inherently wrong with software displaying things based
>on some function of a header,
As you might recall, I've said more than once that software is free to
display messages to you in whatever manner you so desire, including three
foot high blinking letters.
Assuming that an undefined string in an unstructured header means "the
subject has not changed" or "this is a followup" is the problem.
But then, you knew that, too.
>The major effect of deprecating the use of "Re: " will be to
>_increase_ the use of other such prefixes. That's a bad result.
The major effect of deprecating the use of "Re: ", if we actually decide
to do that instead of simply not discuss it, would be for agents to start
paying attention to the References header. That's a good thing.
--i37J5tNG088096.1081365954/b.mail.peak.org--