Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by zamnos 1163 days ago
Ah yes. Prior to computers there was no such thing as art, and then before the invention of color, everything was black and white.
1 comments
imgabe 1162 days ago
The topic was email. Email does not need to be art.
link
lucumo 1162 days ago
https://images.indianahistory.org/digital/collection/m0399/i...

Even in this letter from 1950, there is:

- bold type - underlining - different text alignments - a table

It's done shittily, but it's done. It also took forever, which is why they had to fill large rooms with typists.

link
imgabe 1162 days ago
You can do all that with plain text, except for the bold.
link
lucumo 1161 days ago
You can emulate them imperfectly.

Underlining will use much more space with dashes. So much so that the spacing adds to the emphasis. And you can't use it in running text. Underlining with underscores OTOH is hard to read and has less emphasis than normal underlining.

Alignment can be done more or less correctly, but it is a hassle. And it requires a monospace font, which isn't great for readability.

Tables also require a monospace font, and are also a hassle, and you'll still end up with a hard to read pseudo-table.

And that's just the mentioned limitations. You also can't include charts, formulas, screenshots, links, superscript, subscript, italics, without severe limitations.

If email were still limited to plain text + attachments, I think a lot of them would be "please see attached Word file".

link
imgabe 1161 days ago
And if you have a document that requires charts and graphics it should probably be a separate document and not an email. That’s not what email is for.
link
lucumo 1161 days ago
It's a pretty good use of email. "What it's for" is not up to you to decide, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
link