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Re: Why the normative form of IETF Standards is ASCII

2010-03-12 15:54:54

A) I think that says much more about the low quality of a particular
PDF reader than about PDF itself.  The point solution is obvious: never
use that piece of software.

B) For many of us who need to refer to IETF standards while looking at
the world through a 24x80 ssh session, ASCII is most convenient.  But
not everyone works that way, and not who *does* work that way does
so all the time.

C) While avoiding trendy, transient, proprietary, idiosyncratic document
formats is a good thing, there has been -- to Tim Bray's point -- some
progress in this area over the past few decades.  I think it's reasonable
to talk about maintaining documents in a master format from which
renditions are derived, e.g., keep the document in XML and generate from
that ASCII, HTML, PDF or other renderings.  Yes, this is a road with
a thousand potholes, some of them large.

D) I'm holding out for troff. ;-)

---Rsk
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