Re: Wrapping long lines (Was Re: FAQ update suggestion for "I'm having basic problems with find. Why?")

["William Blunn" <bill--cygwin at tao-group dot com>]

>     "If you're archiving people's posts for all time, there is a moral
> obligation on you to archive them absolutely *verbatim* and not tamper
> with, edit, reformat, or otherwise alter them."

I wasn't suggesting tampering with them.

Information should be preserved where possible.

My contention is with the process used to emit those archived messages
as web pages.

Wrapping up e-mail in PRE is bogus because flowed text e-mail is not
pre-formatted.

Flowed text e-mail requires one very cheap operation (line wrapping)
before it can be displayed, one which can, in fact, be carried out in
the reader's web browser(!)  So in fact there isn't even any load on the
server(!) Not only that but the reader's web browser knows how wide the
windor is and can wrap it at sensible place (rather than some arbitrary
number of characters based on some anachronistic nonsense).

A goodly fraction of e-mail is now flowed text, and it will only
increase.  Ignoring that is like sticking your head in the sand.

Bill

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