Subject: writing RFC-style documents

From: Pär Lannerö <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 14:47:21 +0100

Hi

At the recent meeting in San Diego there was some talk about a software
package for writing Internet-Drafts using XML. As I have tried it out
while working with the SKICal draft you might be interested to know my
opinion about it. At least those of you who intend to write new
Internet-Drafts. (Converting existing draft documents into XML may not
be worthwile.)

One good thing about editing the draft in one "source" XML document is
that from this document you can automatically generate both a
nice-looking HTML document an appropriately formatted ascii text file
for submission to the RFC Editor. 

Another advantage is that the process is actually published as an
informational RFC. (RFC-2629) In this document there is a DTD which you
can use.

Thirdly the software to convert the source document into .html and .txt
is free and open source. It is a tcl script which you can find at
http://xml.resource.org/authoring/xml2rfc.tar.gz
Table of contents, reference linking etc. is generated automatically by
this conversion software written by Marshall T. Rose.

Even though I would have preferred an XSL transform to a tcl script I
think this is a much better method than using the Word conversion
software which requires that you print and process .prn files. It
certainly is superior to doing raw text editing. Never tried the nroff
stuff though.

I have found only one bug in the tcl software: you cannot refer to a
document in the reference list from inside a <artwork> element (this
element is used for including preformatted text such as sample code). If
anybody on the list is a tcl hacker you might want to help fix this.
Another item on my whishlist is an XSL-fo stylesheet to render
printer-friendly PDF output. If I can find time I will do this myself.

/Pär

-- 
Pär Lannerö, Infostructure developer, Metamatrix AB, Stockholm
Mail: <[email-masked]>  Cellphone: +46 739 44 20 43
Work web: www.metamatrix.se   Personal web: www.lannero.com/p/

---

From: Federico Mena Quintero <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 21:56:21 -0600

> for submission to the RFC Editor. 

Ummm, what is wrong with just using DocBook, instead of defining yet
another DTD and stylesheets?  You can even use the newer DocBook/XML.

It is what everyone[1] seems to be using for formal documents these
days, and it is actually very nice to use.

[1] Free software people, at least.

  Federico

---

From: Pär Lannerö <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 10:58:20 +0100

> another DTD and stylesheets?  You can even use the newer DocBook/XML.

That would be nice, but is there a stylesheet to generate RFC style text
documents 
formatted according to RFC-2223? (Limited to 72 characters per line and
58 lines per page, followed by a formfeed character....) I cannot find
any such information on the Oasis docbook site. 

/Pär