Zeldman writes about a topic that's near and dear (or near and toxic) to my heart: html e-mail.

When I say HTML mail still sucks, I don't mean it sucks because support for design in e-mail today is like support for standards in web browsers in 1998.

I mean it sucks because nobody needs it. It impedes rather than aids communication.

E-mail was invented so people could quickly exchange text messages over fast or slow or really slow connections, using simple, non-processor-intensive applications on any computing platform, or using phones, or hand-held devices, or almost anything else that can display text and permits typing.

While I do agree with a lot of what he says in theory, in practice this post is pretty much a waste of space, a useless rant. Companies are still going to want to do html e-mail and I can explain the difficulties, obstacles and perfectly rational reasons not to use html e-mail until I'm blue in the face, but I'm still going to be asked to do it.

I wish we could all agree that html e-mail is an evil that will not go away and start thinking of real, workable solutions for not making it so utterly horrendous. And if a standards-compliance evangelist like Zeldman could get behind the idea of making e-mail clients standards-compliant, maybe we'd be a little bit closer to it. "Just don't use html e-mail" is not a solution.

(Article here)