Stewart, Yes, you are correct. But, if you had correctly understood the comment you quote below, you would realize that we're clearly in agreement already - at least on that aspect of the discussion. :-) My point is that we make inclusion of elaborate figures more difficult because elaborate figures don't necessarily make for a better understanding - any more than complicated equations do. If people generally agree that complicated diagrams, tables, figures or equations is necessary to understanding a specification - then it is quite possible to do so. The fact that this makes it (at least slightly) harder to write a specification if it must include complex art, does not impact on the difficulty in reading the resulting specification. However, as pointed out several times, making it trivially easy to include complex art MAY make reading specifications that do not require it much harder. Since the vast majority of documents produced by the IETF do not appear to require complex art, our process is optimized for the normal case - just as it should be... -- Eric --> -----Original Message----- --> From: Stewart Bryant [mailto:stbryant@xxxxxxxxx] --> Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 11:40 PM --> To: Gray, Eric --> Cc: ietf@xxxxxxxx --> Subject: Re: Normative figures --> --> --> >We write specifications so that they are easier to read, validate --> >and understand, not so that they are easier to write. --> > --> > --> > --> --> Eric --> --> We write specs so that they will be correctly implemented. --> Anything that makes a specification easier to correctly understand --> surely makes it more likely that it will be correctly implemented? --> --> The cost of incorrect implementation is so high that we can --> can afford to pay a relatively high cost in the effort and --> technology needed to read and write the specification. --> --> - Stewart --> --> --> --> --> _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf