From: David C. Harris (dharris@best.com)
Date: Mon Apr 13 1998 - 00:52:38 MDT
Summary: I'm against needless attachments because they fragment the only
"universal language" of e-mail: the ASCII character set.
When I was first using computers, IBM mainframes used a character code
called EBCDIC, and everyone else used the ASCII standard. Because IBM then
dominated mainframes, we would have to struggle converting character sets
between these two conventions that did not completely translate to each
other.
I worked with incompatible character sets on communicating word
processors during a consulting project at Stanford in 1980. That and other
proprietary quirks were fatal to information sharing at Stanford at that time.
I was the entire computer department at Affymax in 1990, when our Macs
used QuickMail. Microsoft used another mail standard. UNIX and the
then-little-known
Internet used another mail standard, and several other mail standards were
out there.
Trying to cope with these incompatible standards made e-mailing
expensive and difficult. The coming of the Internet standards as a
standard protocol has been immensely helpful to everyone.
Because of the value of everyone sharing a lowest common denominator
standard, experienced Net users avoid using attachments of any kind unless
there is a compelling need.
There is a class of message that requires something other than ASCII
text: files that use more than the ASCII character set, such as compressed
binary programs. But running programs downloaded from people you don't
know well is dangerous, since a running program can plant a computer virus.
On my PC I use the Eudora 3.0 Lite mail program. This is the free one
with the wonderful filter that now sorts my incoming Extropian mail into
folders I called BEST, MID, WORST, and UNFILTERED. Those of you who
express new ideas clearly get read faithfully. Some who are incoherent or
repetitious rarely get read. This Eudora Lite system saves me a lot of
time. The few attachments are saved in a directory of attachments. I have
things set so they will be deleted when I delete the original messages, but
the attachments will waste disk space until I delete the original message
or purge the attachments. I can't recall ever opening or running an
attachment. I usually view them as a sign of the author's inexperience or
lack of "Netiquette".
If we want to include lots of people in our Extropian discussion, including
those who are running software on Macs, the many users of Linux/UNIX
machines, Third World villagers with recycled computers, and corporate
employees stuck with legacy mainframes, we ought to express our messages in
what everyone's software can understand: ASCII text.
- David
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David C. Harris, Medintrans, Box 1257, Palo Alto, CA 94302-1257
Voice: 650-856-9126 (has answering machine or voicemail).
NOTE! My area code changed from 415- to 650- in August 1997! If you have
my phone number recorded, please CHANGE THE AREA CODE TO 650- NOW!
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At 04:47 PM 98/4/12 -0700, slippery@pobox.com (Sunah Caroline Cherwin) wrote:
>... The exi list is the only list I am on that still has this
>problem, I swear to god.
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