Christopher Faylor quoted Igor Pechtchanski: > On Thu, Jul 08, 2004 at 03:56:49PM -0400, Igor Pechtchanski wrote: > >I've already explained why I don't think format=flowed is appropriate > >for this list (in particular, long command lines will also be wrapped > >if it ever were to be accepted).
"Long command lines will also be wrapped..." I would contend that there is an issue of scale here. Detail ------ (Please note all percentage fractions below are just ballpark guess- timates.) I would think that you are likely to see an ever-increasing number of messages which used flowed formatting. If the web archive system continues to emit web pages using PRE, then you will see an ever-increasing number of inconveniently-displayed messages. So this could easily become a kind of always-in-your-face problem, maybe causing a problem on, say, 25% of messages. Occasionally, there will be a long command line where it is important that there is no line break *if the command line is actually used*. If we assume that the web archive system allows flowed text to be wrapped, people reading the message, who don't need to use the command line will just skip over it. No problem for, say, 99% of the time. People reading the message, who *do* need to use the command line will see the command line hit the edge of the window, and continue on the next line. Doing copy-and-paste on the entire (line-wrapped) command line from the browser window will give you a (clipboard) object with *no* linebreaks in it. This is true for every browser I have ever seen. OK so that solves, say, 99% of the remaining 1%. Then we are down to the remaining 1% of the 1%, i.e. 0.01%. There will inevitably be some people who are terminally stupid and will assume that they can use advanced techniques without having acquired the necessary prerequisite background knowledge. They may either not see the wrapped portion of the command line, or will not know that you mustn't press enter/return in the middle of a command line. (The last part is not completely true, because in certain shells you can escape newlines and include them in your command line.) So, yes, you will get a problem 0.01% of the time with my scheme, but that compares to potentionally getting a problem 25% of the time if things are left the way they are now. Think of it this way: If we had already accepted that the web archive system wrapped flowed text, and someone came up arguing that it should not "because it breaks long command lines", would they be given the time of day? I think not. I think the counter argument would be "Yes we know it makes the occasional command-line appear line-wrapped, but that is a nano-issue compared to the downside which is that it will mess up the display for all the flowed messages, which is a far bigger issue." Bill -- William Blunn <bill at tao-group dot com> Tao, 62/63 Suttons Business Park, Earley, Reading, RG6 1AZ, UK Tel: +44 845 644 4458, Fax: +44 845 644 4459, Web: http://tao-group.com/ -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/
