While I use xml2rfc and do so reasonably happily, a few comments
below...
--On Sunday, June 28, 2009 6:33 PM +0200 Iljitsch van Beijnum
<iljitsch(_at_)muada(_dot_)com> wrote:
Hi,
XML2RFC isn't working for me.
For instance, We are now required to use boilerplate that the
"official" version of XML2RFC doesn't recognize so it's
...
I used to write drafts by hand sometimes in the past, but this
is also very hard, because today's tools just don't have any
notion of hard line endings, let alone with spaces at the
beginning of all lines and hard page breaks (at places that
make no sense in an A4 world, too).
Gee. I've had few of those problems when I edit with emacs or
its clones. I guess that doesn't qualify as "today's tools" in
your book but, if so, your issue is much broader than xml2rfc.
This is getting worse because the checks done on IDs upon
submission are getting stricter and stricter.
...
As such, I want to see the following:
- the latest boilerplate is published in an easy to copy&paste
format
Agree that it is a problem if it is not readily available in
that form. But the Trustees seem to be too busy creating new
policies.
- drafts may omit page breaks
While I've stopped noticing whether the non-requirement is being
enforced, to my knowledge, page breaks have _never_ been
required in I-Ds. The problem is that the Secretariat likes (or
has been told to) published a page count as part of the I-D
announcement and that they can't figure out the page count
without page breaks. On would think that they could get a good
approximation by scanning the document counting lines as well as
looking for page breaks to count, noticing that there are no
page breaks, and dividing the line count by 56, but, for some
reason, that has been considered too hard for a decade or so.
- drafts may omit indentation and hard line breaks
Indentation should not (ever) have been a problem with I-Ds.
Line breaks are because a situation in which some documents have
them and others interfere with a different set of reading (and
printing) tools. Just as you want to be able to say "I want to
be able to submit drafts without using xml2rfc to format them",
I want to be able to say "I don't want my drafts to require
processing through some display formatter before I can read them
or have a discussion with someone else that includes references
to "Line M of Paragraph 2 of Section 5.2". I also note that
some of us are very dependent of diffs and the like which also
depend on well-defined lines. So your soft line break
requirement is the one that strikes me as completely
unreasonable.
- no requirements for reference formats
To the best of my knowledge, this has never been a requirement
for I-Ds and the posting tools don't check it. I'd be happier
if xml2rfc permitted me to write something like:
<reference anchor="FooBar" status="later" />
and have it generate
[FooBar] ... to be supplied ...
and/or
<reference anchor="FooBaz" status="incomplete">
<t>whatever notes I want to write to myself, potentially with
embedded cref elements </t>
</reference>
I'd be happy to have either of the above generate warnings, but
they should not prevent the document from compiling. On the
other hand, I've figured out how to get around that sort of
thing, so I've never considered it very important.
Note that this is for drafts in general. If the RFC editor
wishes to impose stricter formatting rules I can live with
that.
Good. Because they certainly will. Note also that there is a
potential difference between a working draft that you are
sharing with friends or a WG and incrementally developing and a
draft that the IESG is willing to look at or put out for Last
Call. Certainly it would be reasonable to subject the latter to
requirements that more closely resemble the RFC ones than it is
for the former.
...
john
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