Watching engineers implement specs as code I note that most use secondary sources such as O'Rielly in preference to the supposedly authoritative IETF specs. The lack of readability is a major reason. This is not the case with W3C specs. There is very little point spending time perfecting text that is only ever going to be read by the author of the O'Rielly nutshell book. The real standard is the bits on the real wire. If those are coded from O'Rielly then O'Rielly, not the IETF is the standards setter. I don't recall seeing ASCII art in O'Rielly books. Leave the ASCII art for recreational use. If you want to be regarded as a professional organization then make sure that every communication looks professional. ASCII art screams 'amateur'. > -----Original Message----- > From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On > Behalf Of Lars-Erik Jonsson (LU/EAB) > Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 9:19 AM > To: Gray, Eric; Stewart Bryant > Cc: ietf@xxxxxxxx > Subject: RE: Diagrams (Was RFCs should be distributed in XML) > > Very well stated!!! > > The ASCII-requirement is (apart from being a compact, > generic, free, non-complex, document format) indirectly > forcing people to really make diagrams simple, i.e. not put > too much crap (complexity) in one single figure. > > After having had to read documents from other organisations > people often cite as "SDO's", I am personally convinced that > the good sides of using ASCII completely outweights the > potential negative aspects. > > /L-E > > > > Stewart, > > > > I suspect most people prefer reading documents that > contain diagrams, > > but anything that limits the complexity of a diagram - > especially for > > documents most often read on a computer screen - is a > feature, rather > > than a bug. > > > > If a diagram is included to communicate (rather than > obscure) an > > idea, then readers should be able to correlate descriptive > text to the > > diagram - either because the diagram is simple enough that > it is not > > necessary to keep referring to it, or because the entire > description > > can be viewed while looking at the diagram. > > > > Sometimes language limitations are a good thing, when > they are tied > > to specific ways of presenting information. > > > > -- > > Eric > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf