On 5 jul 2009, at 16:22, Dave Nelson wrote:
I suppose if there were indeed a *standard* word processor, this might
be feasible, but I think by "standard issue" you mean "commercially
available".
Standard issue = standard, typical. I used it in the sense of "any
decent".
Any word processor can create styles the way I talked about, such as
Word, Pages, OpenOffice, just to name the ones that I know are still
around. The only problem converting a style-tagged document to draft/
RFC format or whatever archival format we end up using in the future.
The obvious way to do this would be to interpret the XML that each of
these produce, but the problem is that they each have their own
format, with little interoperation. Word 97 .doc format is the de
facto lingua franca in the word processing world, but this is an
inconvenient format. Rich text (RTF) format would probably be best.
This format is fairly limited, but we only need the text itself and
the styles so it should be more than sufficient. It's also a text-
based format.
On 5 jul 2009, at 18:01, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
So I am very confused why you are asking us to kill a tool that was
produced by volunteers, works very well, and that many people use by
choice.
You're right, I shouldn't use the word "die". The blog post by ekr
that I linked to in my first message talked about how XML2RFC has
become a de facto requirement because of the outdated formatting
requirements that can only be met with XML2RFC or even quainter tools.
This is what I'm having problems with. Of course if people are happy
with XML2RFC, that's fine.
I have seen some folks arguing that we should make XML2RFC normative
and mandatory. If they can figure out how to automatically and
accurate convert the other mechanisms people use, then that can be
considered.
Ah, but that's impossible, unless you add an AI to the conversion tool
that comes up with the semantic annontations that were never in the
source.
On 5 jul 2009, at 19:04, Doug Ewell wrote:
The point about capitalizing Dutch names wrong is an important
localization issue, since people's names are important, but
treating it as a fatal flaw in the premise of "encode meaning, not
presentation" seems to weaken the overall argument. It's a bug.
It's not a bug, it shows that the basic premise behind XML2RFC is
untenable.
What we need is the ability to write drafts with a standard issue
word processor. I'm sure that sentence conjured up nightmares of
Word documents with insane formatting being mailed around clueless
beaurocracies, but that's not what I mean. Word processors use
styles to tag headings, text, quotes, lists and so on: the exact
same stuff that you can do in XML but rather than having to think
about it (especially closing all tags correctly) it happens
easily, automatically and without getting in the way. (I can even
change the style for an entire paragraph with a single menu
selection or function key without having to find the beginnings
and ends of that paragraph.)
I fear this will run into the ground instantly, if the anti-
Microsoft faction insists on a single "standard issue" word
processor that is unfamiliar to most users. The same problems with
learning to use a new tool will apply.
It sounds like what people really want is a more comprehensive
system that would allow I-D authors to use xml2rfc, roff, Word,
LaTeX, or basically any tool they like, not a great policy reversal
that replaces one mandatory tool with another. Given the level of
effort involved and user expectations, especially concerning
support for the latest updates to the IP boilerplate, this would be
beyond the scope of volunteer developers; it would require
professional developers with a professional development budget.
--
Doug Ewell * Thornton, Colorado, USA * RFC 4645 * UTN #14
http://www.ewellic.org
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
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