Subject: RE: A modest proposal - allow the ID repository to hold xml

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 15:34:49 -0600 (MDT)

> From: "Rosen, Brian" <[email-masked]>

> I think this was "and html" not "or html", so I think that it is
> easier to have one additional format and see how it goes, rather
> than two (or three, or four)
>
> On of the advantages of xml is that it marks up things like references and
> authors with the function, rather than the appearance.  You can
> much more easily generate html from xml than the other way around.
> Improved formatting is good, but improved cross references/author
> tracking/.... is also good.  With xml, we can get both, albeit
> somewhat indirectly.  I think that for a small, simple step, xml
> is a better choice.

The same things were said the last half dozen times this issue came up.
After about the second or third round in about 1989, PostScript was
officially sanctioned.  In some ways that went worse than opponents
predicted, but in other ways better.  The positive view is that PostScript
for RFCs died.  Since then we've had at least 2 or 3 rounds of "HTML is
better" followed by at least two rounds not counting this one for XML.

It's one thing to advocate PostScript, MS Word, XML, HTML, nroff, or
whatever you like for the I-D submission format.  This morning some
people seemed to be saying that XML should only replace nroff.  I don't
see the point, but then I use vi and emacs to generate nroff.  If the
Editor will tolerate XML, or any of a zillion other markup or fancy
document formats (I designed and implemented one 20 years ago that saw
significant commercial exposure), no one has standing to complain.

However, by this afternoon, the consensus among reformers seems to be
replacing ASCII with XML for the normative documents.  Also as I
predicted this morning, there is no consensus on the DTD except that
it will be small, simple, wonderful for generating HTML, links, etc.,
and different from Marshall's.  The parade of wonderful, simple, easy
to use, powerful, user friendly markup tools has already begun.

The talk of submitting I-Ds through a validator sounds nice, but
unimpressive to anyone with real world experience with HTML validators.
I write very simple HTML with vi and emacs and use the X3C validator
enough to worry that they might cut me off.  Still, the fact that the
X3C validator is no subsitute for testing your HTML against browsers
demonstrates that correctness provers are as far from the perfection
claimed in advertising for markup languages as for programming languages
and protocols.

It is just plain ***WRONG!*** to even start to consider anything but
ASCII for the official documents.  As hard as it is for the unscared
to believe, even XML will fade away completely and be replaced by
something else even more wonderful, user friendly, easier for convicted
monopolies to embrace and extend, and so forth.  When that happens,
there will be a new calls for "reform."

To put it another way, no one who is the least uncomfortable with the
existing PostScript RFCs has any standing to advocate XML for official
documents.  That Communism or replacing ASCII RFCs didn't work before
does not support the position that this time we'll get it right.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2003 18:26:36 -0400

--On Wednesday, 03 September, 2003 15:34 -0600 Vernon Schryver 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
>> On of the advantages of xml is that it marks up things like
>> references and authors with the function, rather than the
>> appearance.  You can much more easily generate html from xml
>> than the other way around. Improved formatting is good, but
>> improved cross references/author tracking/.... is also good.
>> With xml, we can get both, albeit somewhat indirectly.  I
>> think that for a small, simple step, xml is a better choice.
>
> The same things were said the last half dozen times this issue
> came up. After about the second or third round in about 1989,
> PostScript was officially sanctioned.  In some ways that went
> worse than opponents predicted, but in other ways better.  The
> positive view is that PostScript for RFCs died.  Since then
> we've had at least 2 or 3 rounds of "HTML is better" followed
> by at least two rounds not counting this one for XML.
>
> It's one thing to advocate PostScript, MS Word, XML, HTML,
> nroff, or whatever you like for the I-D submission format.
> This morning some people seemed to be saying that XML should
> only replace nroff.  I don't see the point, but then I use vi
>...

Vernon,

The proposal seems to be evolving --or a straw man is being set 
up with which to kill it-- and I can't tell any more whether we 
agree or not.  So let me try to restate things a bit...

(1) As an/the authoritative format, plain ASCII text, plus 
whatever additional format(s) the RFC Editor decides to permit 
to support drawings, etc., should almost certainly remain the 
target for the reasons you identify.  And any of those 
"additional formats" should almost certainly be self-contained 
page description/ layout ones.  I.e., although the RFC Editor 
might impose additional criteria, Postscript qualifies and PDF 
qualifies.  No "mark up" language, be it nroff, XML, HTML, or 
others, ought to qualify because they require supplemental 
information,  embedded in processors or elsewhere, to actually 
determine what is displaced.

(2) If a group of people, such as a WG, are collaborating on the 
development of a document, having the working format (whatever 
it is) readily available would seem to be an advantage.  This 
should not make that format authoritative, or attach any special 
importance or validation to it relative to other formats.

Now I think that all that Brian proposed originally was that the 
XML format of Internet Drafts be made available when it happened 
to exist.   Even though that might be letting the proverbial 
camel's nose into the tent, it strikes me as basically harmless 
and probably useful.

Did I misunderstand him?  Do we disagree about part of the above 
and, if so, which part?

    john

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 16:51:23 -0600 (MDT)

> From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>

> target for the reasons you identify. ...

> importance or validation to it relative to other formats.

That sounds fine or at least tolerable.

> camel's nose into the tent, it strikes me as basically harmless 

yes.

> Did I misunderstand him?  Do we disagree about part of the above 

My possibly mistaken impression of Brian's most recent position is
that he would support XML for the official documents.  Regardless of
his position, other people have clearly come out in favor XML for the
official format.  The frequently mentioned hyperlinks among documents
such as for authors would be rather boring if the links are only among
documents that expire after 6 months.  More powerful searching among
I-Ds would be useful, but the real power would be searching among
RFCs.  Several people have written about converting old RFCs to XML.

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 12:36:19 +0200

On woensdag, sep 3, 2003, at 23:34 Europe/Amsterdam, Vernon Schryver 

> there will be a new calls for "reform."

It's all very simple. The ASCII format in which RFCs are published is a 
huge pain, because it puts whitespace, linebreaks, headers, footers and 
page breaks in fixed places. So anyone who doesn't use the same printer 
as the RFC editor is inconvenienced.

For just reading the RFC this isn't a huge deal as after the first 
hundred or so you get used to it. But for editing an existing document, 
it is much more painful.

Personally, I'd like to see all the extra stuff that isn't pure ASCII 
with a line break after a paragraph go, but I guess this is different 
for everyone. But there is one thing I'm pretty sure of: nobody edits 
IDs or RFC in their native format. So why not simply make the format 
used by the author available in a structured way? This isn't guaranteed 
to help (the original format may only be decipherable by no longer 
existing tools) but at least there is potential for more efficiency, if 
the original format can stilll be read and converted.

---

From: "Rosen, Brian" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 17:01:02 -0400

Brian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vernon Schryver [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 2:05 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: A modest proposal - allow the ID repository to hold xml
> 
> 
> > about.  We also avoid heated discussions about what was allowable
> > in the html, what version of which tools, etc.  This is a 
> contentious
> > enough issue ("rough consensus and running code" applies, right?),
> > ...
> 
> If that is a problem with HTML (I agree that it is),
> why wouldn't it be a bigger problem with XML?
> 
> Replacing "HT" with "X" doesn't magically change the politics.  In 
> fact it makes them worse, because HTML is by now more stable and
> has better consensus reality than XML.
> 
> 
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