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by eviks 168 days ago
They do, and it's even misapplied in this example - there are weird hard line breaks (an ASCII character) in the wrong places, breaking the supposed "accessibility" of the format.

But also, you continue to miss the point - this lacking/bad layout/formatting is precisely the reason not to use plain text
2 comments
Muehe 168 days ago
> there are weird hard line breaks (an ASCII character) in the wrong places

They aren't in the wrong place, if you view the site on desktop, or mobile browser in desktop-mode (for me at least), or the source, the line-breaks form proper paragraphs. Looks like the host actually delivers HTML/CSS with wrapping rules instead of plain text though, which messes it up for screens narrower than a full line in the file.

But either way, the file remains perfectly readable even with the added line breaks, not like any text is missing or moved.

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eviks 168 days ago
I'm amused by all the plaintext defenders not being able to parse this simplest of the file formats!

> if you view the site on desktop ... , or mobile browser in desktop-mode (for me at least), or the source, the line-breaks form proper paragraphs

Nope. The first paragraph consists of 3 lines (#9,10,11), so has 2 extra linebreaks (both in desktop and source form). The next one is lines #13-21, so has 8 extra linebreaks. Because of that it doesn't reflow properly, so looks bad at most of the screen widths

> not like any text is missing or moved.

It is moved due to linebreaks, here is a simple example: the notation of the numbers is force-moved to the next line instead of being adjacent to the numbers, this hurts your "perfect" readability

> re characters 32 to 126

> (decimal)

There is nothing perfect about readability of the poorly formatted/laid out text! And doing everything "plainly" simply robs you of the ability to reach the expressiveness available even to the cave man

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krapp 168 days ago
>But also, you continue to miss the point - this lacking/bad layout/formatting is precisely the reason not to use plain text

I don't miss the point, I rather disagree with your opinion.

Formatting and layout are properties of the client, and you can display plaintext in any color or font you wish.

But the default - plain white background and plain black text with a simple serif or sans-serif font simulating a paper document - is perfectly readable.

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eviks 168 days ago
> rather disagree with your opinion.

So why can't you address it instead of coming up with an alternative argument again?

> Formatting and layout are properties of the client

No, I've given you a specific example - forced newlinew - of layout that is not a property of the client. ======================= is another example, this time it's formatting, also not a client property

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