I agree with what John has to say but also with the “bumper sticker” way that Keith expressed it - changes should be made when to very well established and widely used systems its known that no one uses the old version not just because someone thinks there is a better way for what its worth - I have used the old format for decades and still do (or want to) i.e. pages & page numbers Scott > On Dec 1, 2019, at 3:23 PM, John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > I would say "+1" too, except that, from experience, the implicit > characterization of paginated (and header and footer-equipped) > plain text as being only about printing (especially, as has come > up in other notes, printing on ancient, perforated-paper, line > printers) misses the point that there are at least three reasons > that I can think of to prefer that format (other than > idiosyncratic personal taste, but I don't think the IETF gets to > say that even the latter is illegitimate). Those are: > > (1) One really does intend to print the document and has a > printer, or printer drivers, that make handling of documents > without page breaks difficult. As Paul Hoffman just pointed out > (and I pointed out last week), RFC 7994 requires pagination (but > just page breaks, not headers or footers) for the RFC output. > If RFCs are being produced and put into the archives / available > from the RFC Editor's server) that don't have those page breaks > in the plain ASCII form (and we seem to have at least one > example) that is a bug and it is, at least IMO, reasonable to > ask how soon it will be fixed (and maybe why it happened). > > (2) One has discovered that, regardless of the format in which > one prefers to read RFCs, it is easier to work with them in > plain text format using public tools like "grep", some > highlight-copy-and-paste operations, and so on. Most, perhaps > all, of those uses require that plain text files be available; > few, if any, require pagination, much less headers, footers, or > page numbers [1]. > > (3) One has private tools (or obscure public ones that there has > been no evidence that anyone other than their authors know > about) that are actually dependent on the presence of headers > and/or footers and/or usable page numbers. > > So, I think that Keith should have said "only if there's rough > consensus that > none of the three cases above exist anymore. If they do, there > is rough consensus that the IETF is willing to tell users whose > work falls into one of those categories that we are just not > interested in their problems and that, if the result is that > they reduce their participation or willingness to accept RFCs > for other purposes, we just don't care." > > best, > john > > p.s. Some of the comments about A4 paper make questionable > assumptions about how line and page lengths for RFCs were > chosen. It may well be that we (and I do mean "we" because I > was involved in the discussion although I certainly was not the > decision-maker) got it wrong, but the assumption that is was not > considered is simply incorrect. > > [1] As I have discussed elsewhere and will not repeat unless > asked, the claim that eliminating the ability to reference into > an RFC by page number and therefore encourage shorter sections > has actually been disproven by years of experience. The only > things that encourage or forces shorter sections are author > education and the RFC Editor insisting that they will not > publish a document with too-long sections without a very > specific justification (at least unless the Stream Manager > insists and then probably with the appropriate note). > > > --On Sunday, December 1, 2019 12:55 -0500 "Scott O. Bradner" > <sob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> +1 >> >>> On Dec 1, 2019, at 12:52 PM, Keith Moore >>> <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>>> On Dec 1, 2019, at 12:28 PM, Nick Hilliard <nick@xxxxxxxxxx> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>> I'd be happy for pagination to be the default if there were >>>> rough consensus that the primary medium for reading RFCs was >>>> printed paper. >>> >>> Seems like this is backwards. Pagination should be removed >>> from plain text RFCs only if there's rough consensus that >>> nobody prints RFCs anymore - not because a few individuals >>> think that nobody should do that, or think that they're in >>> a position to dictate how RFCs are used. >>> >>> Keith >>> >>> >> > >
