<plaintext> tag obsolete? I think not!

Jamie Gerdes (jgerdes@prismrsc.com)
Fri, 09 Jan 1998 09:25:42 -0600 

Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980109092542.007abd90@hadji.prismrsc.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 1998 09:25:42 -0600
To: www-html@w3.org
From: Jamie Gerdes <jgerdes@prismrsc.com>
Subject: <plaintext> tag obsolete?  I think not!

I've read a few websites that said the <plaintext> tag has become obsolete
now that we have the <pre> tag.  And that it is no longer supported.

Hmph!

The only way <pre> could make the <plaintext> tag obsolete is if it
provided all the functionality of the <plaintext> tag.  But it doesn't!
<Plaintext> printed all the html code to the screen.  The <pre> tag reads
the HTML code and does the necessary formatting.

Now there seems to be no way to print out html code with converting all the
< and > characters to their ascii equivalent (&#060; &#062;).  This isn't
always possible when creating dynamic pages.  (Especially when using the
STDOUT routine in PERL...but that's a whole other mailing list..)

Can anyone please explain to me WHY the <plaintext> tag has been forgotten?!?!

  .jamie gerdes
   jgerdes@prismrsc.com
   (a concerned netizen)