Re: Editing email replies

["pd" <pd@world.std.com>]

"Benjamin Riefenstahl" <Benjamin.Riefenstahl@epost.de> wrote in message
news:m3lm6demzz.fsf@benny-ppc.benny.crocodial.de...
> Hi Peter,
>
>
> Peter Davis <pd@world.std.com> writes:
> > Well, I know I'm probably in a minority here, but I actually think
> > HTML e-mail is a pretty good idea.  You can get much more readable,
> > and more *meaningful* content with HTML.
>
> Shouldn't that read "more meaningful form"?  HTML does nothing about
> the content as far as I see.
>
> One could say that exactly because people should look at their
> content, they should not distract themself and their readers with
> extraneous form elements.  In my experience HTML is very, very rarely
> an improvement in email (or Usenet) messages.

I don't want to prolong this debate too much.  However, I couldn't help but
notice that your reply has quoted part of mine, and contains two blocks of
text with a blank line between them.  Is that form or content?  Answer:
it's both!  The fact that text is divided into paragraphs, or that documents
are divided into sections, possibly with headers in a different typeface, or
that lists and nested lists can be structured by indentation, etc. are both
form and content.  These things can not be separated as easily as some
people think.  HTML can help to communicate these things more clearly than
plain text.

-pd