*>
*> 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.
*>
I am certainly not going to claim that ASCII art is God's Gift to
Implementers, but I have a hard time believing that the alleged
superiority of the O'Reilly specs is due to the artistic quality
of their diagrams, as opposed, say, to the quality of their prose.
*>
*> 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'.
I'm sorry, that is nonsense. Was Jon Postel an amateur?
Fancy pictures CAN be a help for some explanatory purposes, but they
can also distract from a poorly written description.
Bob Braden
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