Re: I-D ACTION:draft-hoffman-utf8headers-00.txt

>> having a single flag to say that fields are in utf-8 is ridiculous - 
>> first because the fields aren't all generated at the same place, and 
>> second because (as you point out) you potentially have to scan the 
>> whole header anyway to find the new header field.
>
> He who knowingly generates a UTF-8 header would be responsible for 
> ensuring that the "Foobar" header was added, if not already present. 
> IOW, those who want to use this new-fangled UTF-8 stuff would be the 
> ones to bear the cost.

that's missing the point.  adding an extra field is easy, making sure 
that all non-ascii text that is in the header is in utf-8 at the time 
that that field is added is hard. making sure that any nonascii text 
that is subsequently added by other agents is also in utf-8 is 
impossible.

>> but as far as I'm concerned putting utf-8 in headers is a nonstarter 
>> anyway.  there's simply no justification for  it.
>
> Maybe not, but the problem is that it is going to happen whether you 
> like it or not, because people will find that it "just works" (well, 
> mostly).

lots of people do stupid things.  it's naive to believe that IETF can 
stop people from doing stupid things by defining other ways to do those 
things.

> Indeed it is already happening, except that the code used is usually 
> not UTF-8.

which is exactly why tagging the entire header as either being utf-8 or 
not doesn't work.