Hi -
From: "Stefan Santesson" <stefan(_at_)aaa-sec(_dot_)com>
To: "Donald Eastlake" <d3e3e3(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>; "IETF Discussion
Mailing List" <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 3:42 PM
Subject: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required
How do you translate the .nroff formatted document to a readable text
document?
One of the advantages of nroff input is that it *is* human readable. (To me
it seems much easier to read than HTML, but that's not the issue here.)
That depends on the HTML. We use a stripped down XHTML format for our
documentation sources that I find far more readable than nroff source. I also
like being able to syntax check early and often - all three of the editors I
routinely use have XML syntax checkers built in.
But I find xml2rfc format even easier to read than either stripped down HTML or
nroff.
Regardless of the format you use, I believe the key is to realize that you
spend more of your time looking at the input file and not the output file, and
it pays not to be a slob. I've gotten XML source for drafts from people who
seem to get this, but I've also gotten stuff that was so awful I really could
not understand how they put up with it.
But the real difference is in the type of markup. When I'm writing I want to
focus on the content, not on presentation details. Stripped down HTML is OK in
this regard, but not nearly as good as a format that focuses on the structural
controls I need, not the presentation details I don't care about. IMO xml2rfc
doesn't go far enough in this regard.
I think the mistake many people make is in worrying about the presentation
details too soon, too often, and too much. In a very real sense that's what the
RFC Editor is *for*.
To generate formatted output (in a variety of possible formats) the freely-
available groff program works well.
Um, yeah, and try installing that on some only vaguely UNIXish system it hasn't
been compiled on before. Been there, tried that, ended up using ssh to run it
on a systemm where it was preinstalled.
I've also have issues with variations between different nroff processors and
different versions of macro packages. When xml2rfc became available I converted
everything to it. Vast improvement, never going back.
Ned
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