Re: Removal (Time for XMail?)

At 12:16 PM 9/29/00 -0500, Ken MacLeod wrote:
>> Effectively, it'd be headers first, then content as a separate
>> message or set of messages.  The recipient would have a lot more
>> control over what they got, we wouldn't be trying to stuff
>> everything into an XML document, and maybe we could finally get past
>> some of SMTP's legacy headaches.
>
>Wouldn't that effectively be XMLized MIME?  Then one would only need
>to find the justification for XML format for headers over RFC822
>format for headers.  (One such justification is an extra layering of
>structure before getting to the mini-parsing of fields.)

It would sort of be XMLized MIME, but it would involve the (re-)creation of
a lot of messaging infrastructure.

I think the justification you've provided - an extra layer of structure -
is a good one.  Another one I'd point to is breaking out of the ASCII text
boundaries that currently make working with MIME and standards based on
MIME such fun.

I suspect the harder sell on this would be this shift from "I'm sending you
this big chunk o' mail" to "I'm sending this menu of items.  Which would
you like to get?"

I think XML would make that kind of processing much less error-prone and
easier to implement, but I'd still expect opposition from the rather
entrenched group of folks who seem to regard the SMTP (and MIME) approach
as the one true approach.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books

Received on Friday, 29 September 2000 13:35:09 UTC