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I was merely taking issue with your use of "by definition" and "correct". :) It's more accurate to say "by convention" and "assumed", which makes the argument
by exogen 12y ago
I was merely taking issue with your use of "by definition" and "correct". :)
It's more accurate to say "by convention" and "assumed", which makes the argument for continuing to insist on monospace weaker.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 12y agoThis is not a philosophical argument, but about interoperability in a distributed system. Interoperability is all about conventions, by definition. Therefore, doing what is convention and what is reasonably assumed by participants in the system is, indeed, correct, by definition, unless there is an overriding concern, like security. People have most definitely written mails with the semantically relevant assumption that they will be displayed in a monospace font, and those mails are still around, so the only correct thing to do to maintain compatibility is to display mails that don't indicate support for non-monospace display in a monospace font. It's that simple. Also, obviously, there still are systems around from back then that still produce new emails which also still make that assumption.