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Re: Re: Limit of an expression?

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg67681] Re: [mg67649] Re: Limit of an expression?
  • From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl>
  • Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 01:58:19 -0400 (EDT)
  • References: <200607031038.GAA16482@smc.vnet.net>
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

On 3 Jul 2006, at 19:38, Bill Rowe wrote:
>
>> Actually, the above should be perfectly legible to you and anyone
>> using a reasonably modern e-mail program.  All you have to do is to
>> make sure that the message is displayed with Unicode (UTF-8)
>> encoding. Your e-mail program should normally be able to choose the
>> right encoding automatically but if it does not do so you should be
>> able to change it manually.
>
> Unfortunately, it isn't quite as simple as your comments above  
> imply. The problem is there is no single setting of an email client  
> that can be guaranteed to display messages on this properly as  
> UTF-8 isn't the only encoding a poster might use. So, while I do  
> have a client that will display UTF-8 properly, I find I have to  
> try several different encodings at times until I find the one that  
> seems to correctly display. The information needed for my client to  
> automatically select the proper display appears to either not have  
> been available in the first place or gets stripped as a result of  
> the moderator's actions.
>
> Hence as the moderator said
>
>> [It is better if posters do not send messages in this form in the
>> first place -moderator]
> --
>
>


I do not think your comments apply to anything I have ever  
experienced on  this mailing list. You write "a poster might use"  
another encoding but on earth should he? In fact,  I never  
deliberately "use" UTF-8 - it is enough to copy and paste any  
InputForm of a Mathematica expression that contains Greek letters or  
signs like ² into Apple's Mail and the message will be automatically  
sent as Unicode, without my "choosing" anything.  Moreover, such  
messages are always recognized (again by Apple's Mail of course) as  
Unicode when I get them back form the MathGroup server. The headers  
in posts I receive from the MathGroup mail server ) never contain  
encoding information (quite properly, which makes it possible for  
Apple's Mail to recognize Unicode encoded messages automatically.  
Thus I never normally experience any problem with messages that I  
posted myself and which contain Unicode text. Problems appear only  
when such text is quoted by others, whose mail clients did not  
correctly recognize the encoding. In such cases a header that looks  
like this might appear:


If this happens Apple Mail will not attempt to recognize the encoding  
and will display it incorrectly. But in this case just one trip to  
the Text Encoding menu fixes the problem. There is never a need to  
try any other encoding but UTF-8 on this list, because unless someone  
deliberately used a non-Latin encoding the only possibility is  
Unicode. Anyway, I have never experienced the problem with having to  
choose more than once, on this list anyway. It could of course be  
that Apple Mail is just much better in this respect than Windows mail  
clients but, in spite of my Mac-centrism, I can hardly believe it.

Andrzej Kozlowski


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