Re: future of annotations in Lua?

[Jim <sysinit@...>]

14.06.2019, 19:40, "Philippe Verdy" <verdy_p@wanadoo.fr>:
>>   I'm subscribed to a mailing list devoted to classic computers [1], and
>> *they* gave up on trying to enforce non-HTML emails (and top posting, and
>> ... ).  Sadly, it's a lost cause.
>
> And for my case, you're wrong, the mails were sent from some machine running
> some Linux or BSD system (anything that Google wanted for its Gmail service).
> And they're definitely NOT old computers, but very modern ones, highly
> optimized for efficiency and security.

that was just a general EXAMPLE he gave to make his point clear.
he wanted to emphasize how bad the situation has become and
used the example of a mailing list "devoted to classic computers"
which one instantly assumes to be only subscribed by old pre facebook
luddites that do not even know html formating of message texts
is possible. :D

it was more meant as a reply to my posting and not directly connected to
you or the OS/mailer you use.

> I've abandonned since long any use of local mail clients
> (because they were very unpractical and storage was at much more risk.

but storing mails on NSA disks is not risk at all, i see.

> Security was not even better locally than what Google can do itself on its
> servers, and with much better handling and detection of spams.

?
there exist endless spam detection toolsets that can be used at your site,
server or client side.

i personally use a webmailer only since i cannot run my own. :-(
it is no good thing at all, though.
but emails should not be used where privacy/security is a concern
anyway.

> You may argue that privacy is an issue, but privacy is definitely not one
> for public mailing lists like this one.

indeed. but many people will use the same account for private mails and
their mailing list subscriptions.

> So yes this is a lost cause (otherwise Gmail would have enforced it since long,
> but it NEVER made that even the default).

this is in fact not true. use the basic interface like i did when sending mails
with my google account to this list. even in gmails fancier looking default
interface it is possible to send plain text mails (click "without formating"
and voila, same here with the yandex webmailer).

> So any claim of "netiquette" about this placement is simply fake,
> it may have been proposed by a few but never accepted and
> supported by a large majority.

i doubt that most of the html-mail "fans" even know/bother they
are polluting the net and mail storage with html formated garbage.
when their mailtool sends plaintext-only mails they would not
notice either. it is not a choice they made wittingly somewhere.
it is the default policy of the mail user agent they use, that is all
there is to it.
 
> The same is true about HTML posting (that still works much
> better than plain-text only messages) and must ALWAYS used
> with the dual encoding

MUST ? ALWAYS ? since when and why is that ?
what SMTP RFC requires that ?
i totally missed that ...
  
> (HTML original + altered plain-text only for those that use very
> antique softwares

like a whole bunch of non-gui unix mailers ?

> that can't even parse a safe basic HTML syntax that shows at

mail is a TEXTUAL protocol, NO mail user agent is REQUIRED
by anything to "parse safe basic HTML syntax".
it is a MAIL USER AGENT, not a browser, please do not mix things.

> last the content but can still disable any form of active scripting,
> including links to external images not part of the mail as an
> attachment, or tracking pixels).

since when is a mail user agent required to handle "external images"
or "tracking pixels" ?? such questions do not even arise when just
sending PLAIN text messages.

> In fact emails should use HTML-only by default now.
> Plain-text-only is outdated and not reliable
> (it breaks legitimate contents to give non-sense),
> and the current HTML+plain-text format shouls now no longer
> be necessary

who decided this ? hot-/gmail by making it their default ? you ?
why not making pdf the default ? or even better: only allow
M$ word format. :D

BTW: i never understood why C, Lua and anybody else require
ASCII source code and do not require it to be formated in PDF,
doc and/or HTML. :DD

> if you use Lynx, Lynx can still perfectly parse HTML and render

why should one use Lynx for sending, receiving, reading emails ?
it is a web browser after all and no mail user agent.

> its text; otherwise if your agent can only process plain-text,
> it is definitely antique,

says ?

> and most probably dangerous for you to use, or at least very
> unreliable, given the many inconsistencies left in the old RFCs

i am sure you have read all the "old RFCs", right ? :DD

> supporting it but that were never solved correctly ...

i see. that old lamers (who exactly ? dunno ;-) dared to never
solve it "correctly", so we still have to send plain text mails instead
of sending HTML, PDF, PS, DOC or whatever.

these dinosaurs responsible for the mail standards and grumpy old
luddites implementing/maintaining (and still using ??) "antique"/outdated
mail user agents should be retired urgently.

> before the arrival of MIME and the shared development with HTTP
> that allowed full interoperability and HTML then made the default

now i understand. :D

> (and now efficient, consistant and secure since the huge HTML5
> efforts) !)

i agree that HTML4/XHTML is outdated and "antique" and hence
cannot be used to format mails, HTML5 HAS to be used for formating
mails, there is no other. :D

HINTS:

1) do not put the whole mail on one line, split it into several lines
    not longer than 80 chars instead, using paragraphs also
    improves readability (i. e. insert an empty line from time
    to time)

2) use the "basic" gmail webmail interface by default, even
    though it looks "antique", outdated or whatever, it also
    helps with letting lines grow not too long and only sends
    PLAIN text mails.

3) when using the default gmail webmail interface for posting
    messages to mailing lists make sure to click on "without
    formating" when starting to compose the message.
    (same holds for yandex and other webmailers)