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text/lp [was Re: discouraged by .docx was Re: Plagued by PPTX again]

2011-11-27 10:20:44
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The problem here is that RFC and Internet-Drafts are not plain ASCII.  They are
technically in a special format that I would call "line-printer ready text
file", and ASCII is the encoding, not the format.  What is needed is:

- - A mime-type for line-printer ready text (say text/lp)
- - An heuristic to recognize text/lp files (it's too late for a specific
extension).  Apache HTTP server can use the AddType directive for these 
files[1].
- - A program to display text/lp files, one at least for each platform.  If
someone take care of the mime-type, I'll write the program to display correctly
text/lp files on the Android platform.


[1] Try this link: http://ietf.implementers.org/rfc5928.txt.  The mime type
should be text/lp.

On 11/27/2011 12:20 AM, Yaakov Stein wrote:
Dave

I agree that we are thinking as "content creators", and that is the problem.

The requirement is not that we will be able to write a new document in 50 
years in the same format. 
The requirement is that we should be able to read the documents written 50 
years before.

The problem about ASCII art is not simply the monospacing.
The main problem is the line wrapping.

I have tried many times to look at ASCII art on iPhones, iPods, and even 
small pads. 
Once you zoom down sufficiently to get the lines not to break, 
the characters are no longer readable.
For a screen size of about 60 mm, 80 character lines means that the 
characters are only 0.75mm in width.
Even assuming a "short" figure that could be viewed rotated (width 110 mm)
each character width would be only slightly more than the 1 mm needed for 
viewing,
and less than the 1.5 mm needed for actual reading.
 
Put in another way, high-end cellphone screens presently have 640 pixel 
widths.
For 80 character layouts, this translates to 8 pixels per character plus 
inter-character spacing,
or about 6 pixel character widths. 
Even were they visible (and each pixel is less than 1/10 of a mm!)
this would mean very low quality fonts - 5*7 was the lowest quality used by 
old dot-matrix printers.
And modern software is not optimized for readability at that font resolution.

So, if we expect people to be able to read our documents in 5 years, let 
alone 50,
we need to stop using ASCII art.

Y(J)S

-----Original Message-----
From: ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org 
[mailto:ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of Dave Aronson
Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2011 00:10
To: IETF Discussion
Subject: Re: discouraged by .docx was Re: Plagued by PPTX again

On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 15:52, Yaakov Stein <yaakov_s(_at_)rad(_dot_)com> 
wrote:

ASCII is already unreadable on many popular devices

Oh?  For what reason?  Sorry, I'm still using an incredibly stupid
phone, so I may be behind the curve on such changes.  As far as I've
seen in my limited exposure, any difficulty is usually because it's
often not linewrapped well (or at all), forcing a lot of horizontal
scrolling, especially after being forced to be big enough to be
legible on tiny screens not held right up to the face.  That's rather
inconvenient, but still a far cry from "unreadable" -- plus it's a
problem with the reader program (being too "featureless" to rewrap the
text), not anything inherent in the format.

ASCII *artwork*, yes, that often gets ruined by the refusal of many
programs to allow the user  to display content in a monospaced font.
But that's not because it's in plain ASCII; you could say the same
thing of a Word or PDF document that incorporates "ASCII" art.

I am referring to the fact that more and more people are reading
documents on cell-phones and other small devices.
According to analysts, this will be the most popular platform for reading
material from the Internet within a few years.

But among what audience?  End-users at large, yes, I can certainly
believe that.  But techies, especially of sufficient caliber to even
*want* to read the IETF's output, let alone participate in creating
it?  Very doubtful.  I don't think we'll be giving up our laptops,
never mind large monitors, any time soon.

Phones and tablets are for content *consumption*.  We are content
*creators*, be it programs, documents, or whatever.  That's an
entirely different set of hardware requirements.  When was the last
time you saw a program or document or anything else of significant
size, written using a phone, or even a tablet?

-Dave

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- -- 
Marc Petit-Huguenin
Personal email: marc(_at_)petit-huguenin(_dot_)org
Professional email: petithug(_at_)acm(_dot_)org
Blog: http://blog.marc.petit-huguenin.org
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