Great thoughts from many people.
I just want to clarify a few things as I see that my message is slightly
misunderstood.
Firstly:
The core of my opinion is NOT that I think people should convert to nroff
encoding or XML coding or XHTML encoding or whatever encoding as editing
language.
I don't think that authors in the future should have to deal with any
markup language at all. That is a task for the editing application, not
the drafter.
The only way that can happen is if we can provide the missing link between
draft editing and markup. The current formats as they are specified and
used today are both crippled.
Nroff can capture exact formatting but can't capture more advanced content
building metadata very well. I had to add a directive layer (only
understood by NroffEdit) inside Nroff comments to make that happen. The
output is still compatible with any nroff compiler, but such compiler will
not understand how to use the NroffEdit directives to alter e.g. Table of
content as the document evolves (the actual subject of this thread).
XML as it is used can capture content building metadata but not format.
That means that I can't build an editing tool that can capture the editing
process in standardized markup.
As long as this is the case, no editing tools free of markup hacking can
be developed that can interoperate with other editing tools on a full
scale.
Secondly:
The reason why I personally use Nroff as edit format is:
1) That how I started off and I have seen no compelling reason yet to
switch.
2) I find it personally the least evil format for the text writing process.
3) I managed to overcome many of the backsides with nroff (Table of
content building, reference generation etc) in my NroffEdit tool.
4) I like the WYSIWYG experience in my tool. To always be able to
immediately see the result of my editing makes me a better writer.
I have no reason to try to convince anyone to use anything but what works
best for you.
The most I can which for by making NroffEdit available is to put up a
viable darn-easy-to-use alternative to xml editing to inspire further
development of better tools.
Kudos to Julian and others involved with xml2rfc for you efforts!
/Stefan
On 11-03-25 7:21 PM, "John C Klensin" <john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com> wrote:
--On Friday, March 25, 2011 13:06 -0400 "Andrew G. Malis"
<agmalis(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
I know that XML is the wave of the future, but I just want to
give Stefan a plug as a happy user that NroffEdit makes the
mechanical and formatting part of writing drafts almost
effortless.
And, had it appeared a decade ago, I might be using it too. As
it is, it would require my learning something new when I have a
pair of adequate (for me) solutions... and I'm at least as
vunerable to "what I know is better" as anyone else. "Wave of
the future" doesn't interest me nearly as much as being sure
that whatever tools people find convenient and are willing to
support as needed remain usable and, in particular, that we
don't find ourselves requiring the use of one particular tool...
no matter what it is.
john
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf