Re: TECH: Attachments (was Re: The Grammatical Sketch)

On Tue, 12 Oct 1999, Don Blaheta wrote:

>
> So how exactly is including a text file as attachment worse than reading
> it into a message and writing "------8<---CUT-HERE----8<-----" across
> the top?
>
Attachments are often used for other things than text, like
Word files. Not only are Word files unreadable to a lot of
people, they can contain macro viruses that are harmful to
those who can read them. Besides, binary attachtments are
often large (I mean, bloated files and Word files are
synonyms), and I don't know for sure, but I'd expect the
people at Brown university would be quite unhappy if everybody
started to push large files through their machines. If you've
got something large with formatting and so on, stick it on a
web-page and mail a pointer. People without web access can then
ask for a private mail with the document attached - that way
Brown and the rest of the subscribers aren't burdened.

In sum:

 - binary attachments are often unreadable, making them useless
 - binary attachments can be dangerous, making them undesirable
 - binary attachments are often large, makeing them unwanted

I don't think attaching a small text file is really bad, even
though I'd prefer to read all text in the body of the message,
if appropriate. Snippets of code or lexicon can be appropriate
for attachments.

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://denden.conlang.org/~bsarempt