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Re: XML2RFC must die, and so must everything else

2009-07-06 12:55:23
I can't imagine that the vast majority of draft authors has
absolutely no problems with XML2RFC.

This author has plenty of problems with xml2rfc. But then, I have
plenty of problems with nroff, despite having used it regularly since
I used it to write my thesis in the 1970s, and with MS Word despite
having used it on and off since Word 6 in the early 1990s.
Personally, I can edit XML using emacs and its XML macros without much
trouble, since its auto-indent makes it straightforward to figure out
what's supposed to match what, and the xml2rfc codes aren't notably
harder or easier to remember than nroff directives or Word styles.

Just considering the question of what formats are best for authors and
readers (not i18n or graphics), I see people talking past each other
and getting nowhere.

Is it essential that anyone can be fully productive editing I-Ds using
teco or vi with no training?  Or would it be OK to assume that most
people will have access to better tools, so long as it is possible if
painful to edit them with a basic text editor?

Similarly, does the publication format have to be directly displayable
using the native tools found on TOPS-10 or CP/M, or would it be OK to
assume that most people will have access to better tools, so long as
it's possible to view them in a tty emulator, either directly, or by
providing both canonical and rendered versions at the RFC editor FTP
or web server?

It should be pretty obvious what I think the answers to these
questions are, but my answers are clearly not everyone else's.  We
can't solve the problem until we have rough consensus about what
problem we're trying to solve.

R's,
John
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