It seems we are all discussing the presentation (display, print, read,
etc.) of the document. But the purpose of XML is not presentation (i.e.
XML is not for display), but to make the document more meaningful.
XML can makes series of ASCII characters meaningful to computer programs.
With XML markups, documents can be organized and managed more effectively.
XML documents can be rendered into any types of presentation. If you like
to read RFCs or I-Ds in ASCII format, the web site may provide a converter
to render XML documents to pure text presentation. There will be
converters from XML to HTML, ms word, ps, pdf and any other types of
presentation, suitable for any type of readers.
BTW, there are RFCs (1125, 1129, etc.) only available in ps format, and some
provided both text and ps versions. ASCII text is not enough to describe
information.
I wonder if anyone can write a readable pure text version of ITU-T P.861.
Wang Xianzhu
----- Original Message -----
From: <Valdis(_dot_)Kletnieks(_at_)vt(_dot_)edu>
To: "Jun'an Gao" <jag(_at_)kw(_dot_)com(_dot_)cn>
Cc: <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2001 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: Why XML is perferable
On Fri, 23 Feb 2001 11:43:02 CST, jag(_at_)kw(_dot_)com(_dot_)cn (Jun'an Gao)
said:
Assumption:
Total Comprehensiveness of RFCs
= SIGMA { <interest on RFC#i of reader#j>
* <familiarity on the presentation format of RFC#i of reader#j>
}
Notice that the second term evaluates to:
1 if you can display it effectively.
0 if you can't display it effectively.
Now, if you're willing to give us a pointer *TODAY* to software
that will run on *every* major internet-capable platform, and do a
good-enough job of rendering XML in such a way that it is *more*
understandable than flat-ascii on *all* those platforms, then we'll
talk.
Remember that your XML displayer has to work on a PalmPilot, an
IBM3278 (24x80 text-only monitor) driven by IBM's MVS operating
system (EBCDIC-based, no less), and a DecWriter dot-matrix printer/terminal.
I've personally read ASCII-based RFCs on all those. Oh, and you
have to be able to show value-added - that it does a BETTER job
than ASCII on those 3 devices, as well as everything else....
Repeat after me:
Everybody can display ASCII. Until everybody can display XML, we won't
be using XML for the canonical form for RFCs. This is *different* than
what Marshall Rose did in RFC2629 - note that that document is itself
*flat ascii* describing how to write XML and *then convert it to create
a flat ascii RFC*.
Valdis Kletnieks
Operating Systems Analyst
Virginia Tech