[Gllug] [OT] Largest mailbox EVER!

[Jason Clifford]

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003, Rev Simon Rumble wrote:

> > In almost all business communication formatting of text is not 
> > significant. Well written business communication doesn't need it.
> 
> That's just not true.  I'm a technical author and often send, by
> email, small snippets of documentation to developers to check I've got
> it right/not missed anything. 

Odd, I wasn't aware that almost all business communication is the work of 
technical authors.

I am more than aware that there are specific cases where breaking 
standards within closed communities is necessary however it's fallacious 
to pretend that this is good in other circumstances or that the special 
circumstances that make such a requirement valid are sufficient to 
validate breaking standards elsewhere.

> Lose the formatting, lose the meaning.  You're advocating I create an
> entire new document (MS Word, PDF, whatever) just to send a small
> snippet of documentation to a developer?  Or print it?  (we have
> developers working from home, in Israel and in Sydney)  Sorry buddy,
> but here in the real world...

Buddy - here in the real world were not all in a closed community of 
technical writers.

We don't all run identical platforms.

We don't all permit potentially dangerous content to run on our systems.

We don't all want to incur the significant additional costs resulting from 
breaking the standards that exist for a good reason.

> Go and have a look at a man page on a plain ascii terminal, then on a
> terminal that supports vt100 and tell me there isn't more information
> on the vt100 terminal.

Not more information - it's just easier to read.

Jason Clifford
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