He slides the recorded cassette into a padded envelope, puts it through the stamping machine, and drops it off at the mailing desk.
Absurd?
Something like this is, in an allegorical sense, going on all the time in the world out there. I only have to go though my inbox folder to see that the MIME protocol - Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions - which makes e-mail attachments possible, could just as well read ``Microsoft Internet Mail Extensions''. The standard, provided originally to facilitate exchange of audiovisual material in addition to text, is being massively abused. The industry's role is that of enabler, dangling the lure of convenience, getting their hapless users hooked by making it insidiously easy to send, e.g., Word documents as mail attachments. Dead easy. Using possibly more suitable formats requires extra steps.
Adding insult to injury, some 80% of the MicrosoftTM WordTM attachments that I receive are actually plain text files ``inside''. They contain no graphic-like information that would make the use of a more advanced format necessary. Well, perhaps an occasional logo that I have seen many times before.
Why is this bad?
What many people fail to realize is that a Microsoft Word document (like those of many other traditional word processors) is much bigger than the corresponding plaintext file. Five times, ten times, even twenty times bigger. Never mind what additional information it contains - we'll get to that presently! -, for a plain text document, this extra information is not needed. So you waste network bandwidth capacity, storage capacity on the sending side (if you keep sent mails as most people do), and storage capacity on the receiving side.
And... you waste human time on the recipient side, the time it costs to start up a sizable word processing application - when a textual message would have shown up directly in the e-mail reader. And if you access mail on a remote server over a slow phone line, you have no hope of viewing word processor attachments. Plaintext? No problem!
Microsoft Word is a very popular word processor, but not everyone has it or even values having it. For some platforms, it doesn't even exist: if you feel an urge to annoy scientists, send them Word attachments to their UnixTM workstations. If the recipient has Word (or a compatible product), it may be an older version than you have - the internal storage format changes between versions and not everyone is rich enough - or bothers - to keep up. So you would have to take the trouble to store your document as an older version of Word - why not, then, go the full mile and store as plaintext?
Microsoft Word contains a programming (macro) language, and therefore can carry macro viruses. Plaintext does not and can not.
The habit of using attachments, and clicking on them, thoughtlessly is also more generally risky, a form of cyber-promiscuity.
There is a lot in a Word document besides the message you intended to send. Some of it is harmless, like the huge ``empty'' areas that just go pop when you compress or ``zip'' the file. Some is perhaps not so harmless. Word docs are known to contain your identity and that of your computer -- something that helped the FBI to hunt down the author of one notorious Word macro virus. Real life Word documents have often been found to contain fragments of earlier documents, perhaps those from which the template file used was derived - who knows.
It thus does not appear wise that, if you insist on sending out Microsoft Word attachments, you would prepare them on the same machine that contains your valuable business secrets or other private information...
Of course there is a variety of circumstances where sending a word processor document by e-mail makes good sense: in-house collaborative writing, if the recipient has to work further on the document, or if it contains essential layout or graphic elements not well presentable in plaintext. In the latter case alternatives exist worthy of consideration, like PostScriptTM, PDFTM or HTML. Consider also rtf (Rich Text Format), which doesn't have the virus and privacy problems mentioned above and is more widely understood than the native binary formats.
Is this a computer literacy issue? That surely comes into it. I would rather call it an awareness issue. I find that most people are prepared to listen and learn, especially if document format issues have bitten them before. I sometimes try to "house-train" computing-naive people I know on this, and found explaining what I mean by plaintext an amusing but occasionally exasperating experience. Some of my correspondents think it means a Word document without pictures or embedded objects. Or a Word document written completely in the ``Normal'' style - close, but no cigar. Sometimes it feels almost easier to explain the notion of exporting to HTML!
These people seem to live in a matrix where documents are the way they appear on the screen rather than the way they are stored on the hard disk. Many are not even clearly aware of having a hard disk. The desktop environment designers from Apple and Microsoft that set out more than a decade ago to create a desktop capable of being operated by naive users, have been successful beyond their wildest dreams: many of today's computer desktops are indeed operated by near functional computer illiterates. Many people are receptive and willing to learn -- but who is teaching. Here is a huge scope for practically useful advocacy and education work.
As for those few that are aware of it but are completely shameless about it, as if it were quantum chromodynamics and not part of our workaday environment, it's way more basic. It's an attitude thing.
Putting it bluntly (something I am good at :-), by ignoring the simple truths above you expose yourself to the suspicion - nay, certitude - of not knowing how to behave in company, of lacking basic social skills. The amount of technical knowledge involved is so relatively modest after all. And no, being helpless around computing machinery is not a charming personality trait. Help can be found and habits acquired if deemed important enough, as one would with cars, dogs or girl friends.
Unnecessarily sending a word processor format attachment instead of a clean, universally legible plaintext file is inconsiderate and lazy, a form of neglect of elementary hygiene rules somewhat like neglecting your own personal hygiene. People practicing this may by some be felt to be colourful personalities, but you wouldn't want them to be your GP, your hairdresser or (shudder!) your dentist, now would you?
It goes against the stream - and against the commercial interests that be -, but needs to be said. The argument is hardly new to this audience but bears repeating. Let's try to make this complex world a little simpler and a more pleasant place to exist in. That's what social convention is for.
So, doth and sayeth forth. Leave about for friends and colleagues to read. Make aware. Teach. Advocate. Convert. Preach. Pontificate. Nag. Flame when appropriate (but watch the temperature :). Use as .signature. And practice, of course.
plaintext -- Don't Settle For More!