Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!sunic!nuug!ifi!skakke.uio.no!enag From: enag@ifi.uio.no (Erik Naggum) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: Headerlines Message-ID: Date: 12 Jan 90 02:55:20 GMT References: <99800001@nitmar> Sender: news@ifi.uio.no Organization: Naggum Software, Oslo, Norway Lines: 43 In-reply-to: ud@nitmar.uucp's message of 5 Jan 90 01:37:00 GMT Ulrich, Flame on. If you want to understand how mail headers work, study the RFC's, think about why some people with scads of experience, knowledge and understanding wanted it that way. DO NOT suggest random "improvements" just because YOU find it difficult to implement. RTFM, damn it. If you don't understand them, you have no business writing a parser. If you think that the whole rest of the world should stop using a perfectly valid format for addresses, simply because YOU DON'T WANT TO IMPLEMENT IT, please consider what kind of stupid suggestion you are making. Flame off. You may want to write a parser which does not understand all of RFC 822. That's up to you. I won't hinder you, and neither would anyone else. It's your own problem that scads of mail will fail to get through it. I suggest that you try a faithful implementation of RFC 822, and please read RFC 1123 before you attempt that. You should also try to understand why Dave Crocker and the IMHO great guys who contributed to that standard defined the syntax elements the way they did, not just randomly listed "some header-lines contain a list of addresses". RFC 822 does NOT say what you pretend it says. There are a few problems with RFC 822. What you blabber about is not one of them. Don't be afraid of things that "increases the programming work". Be afraid of people who argue against things solely because they need to work a little harder to get things right. (Note: I said "get things _right_", not "get things _working_". "Working" is a subset of "right.") Reconsider posting your "suggestions", as well. [Erik Naggum]