Re: AOL (Was: Re: B/V alternation, technical difficulties)

On Fri, Oct 20, 2000 at 09:07:58AM +0930, Adrian Morgan wrote:
[snip]
> Even companies (Microsoft, Netscape, the lot really) who make HTML
> formatting the default in email are doing the community a disservice, by
> implying that HTML is an established standard for email. It isn't.
[snip]

Hear, hear! HTML was never intended to be used outside the realm of HTTP
implementations. Even HTML as it is today is IMNSHO a sad mutated deviant
from what it was originally designed to be -- a *logical* markup language.
Nowadays, it has accumulated so many ugly *visual* markup tags that XML
had to come to the rescue to allow one to define logical document
structure. Sad, sad.

But unfortunately, the success of a technology is too often governed by
how well it's marketed, as opposed to its technical merit.

Anyway, enough off-topic rant. Let me get back to conscripting :-)

I've just obtained a copy of the METAFONTBook by Donald Knuth, and... what
shall I say? WoW. It's an entire programming language for constructing
fonts! ... I don't know how to describe it. All I want to say is, it's
perfect for conscripting because it comes with an extremely flexible
system of drawing curves, a simply awesome system of pens that allows you
to do all kinds of fancy strokes, etc. -- the calligrapher's dream.

The downside is, you've got to be a programmer to appreciate (and use!)
it. Good thing I'm a programmer :-)


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