RE: BEGIN_SRC..END_SRC

[Drew Adams]

> > When viewed as plain text, markup is noise/garbage/nonsense.
> 
> What about
> ,----
> | code...
> `----
> or
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> code...
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> ?

What about it?

Is someone arguing that those are expected to be rendered specially by email
clients instead of appearing as plain text?  Not I, at least.
 
> Aren't these even more noise/garbage/nonsense than
> #+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
> code...
> #+END_SRC
> then?

We come back to Eli's original question:

 "Do these BEGIN_SRC and END_SRC marks serve
  some useful purpose in mail messages?"

If such scribblings are added by someone in order, as visible text, to point
something out, then it could be argued that yes, the writer at least thought
they added something.

If they are added automatically as markup that is NOT intended to be seen as
such, but is intended to be rendered by an email client, then the answer could
also be yes.  But only if most email clients actually render the markup instead
of showing it as text.  If they show it as text and that was not the intention
then the answer is no, it does not serve a useful purpose.

IOW, if it was intended as plain text then fine (though the writer's judgment
might be questioned).  If it was intended as markup to be rendered then it needs
to be judged as effective markup.  Is it in fact rendered by most email clients?
And do we even want markup messages in this mailing list?  Both questions apply,
if the intention is rendered markup.

This mailing list has decided that users should use plain text instead of
relying on such rendering.  At least in the case of HTML.  And I would hope that
what applies to HTML markup applies a fortiori to much less commonly handled
markup, such as #+BEGIN_SRC.

What if someone intended it to be rendered if possible but otherwise be shown as
plain text - IOW, showing it as plain text was part of the intention?  Can't
argue with that.  If that's what the writer wanted then so be it - see above.

But that's not the answer that was given to Eli's question.  The answer given
was that this markup is intended to be rendered by Gnus, to prettify things.

To that answer I said, (a) in most mail clients it does not work (the intention
is thwarted) and (b) in this mailing list we do not encourage messages that
require rendering.  That's all.