Subject: Re: Last Call: 'Requirements for IETF Draft Submission Toolset' to Informational RFC

From: Bruce Lilly <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 18:07:20 -0400

On Tue April 5 2005 15:30, Alex Rousskov wrote:
> On Wed, 2005/03/02 (MST), <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> > I've suggested (via Reply-To) discussion on the IETF list.
> 
> Bruce,
> 
> 	Thanks a lot for reviewing and commenting on the draft!
> 
> I am preparing a revision to address Last Call comments.
> 
> I am not on the IETF list anymore (too much noise), so I am CCing Tools  
> discussion list instead. Please feel free to forward elsewhere.

I'm copying the IETF list for closure.
 
> > It seems odd that there is no provision for upload of nroff source
> > (RFC 2223) mentioned in sections 7 and 8 of the draft.
> 
> The motivation for uploading XML sources is that they are used by tools  
> and humans processing submitted drafts.

Likewise for nroff source.

> For example, RFC Editor is often   
> using authors' XML sources.

While I have no data to either confirm or refute that assertion, RFC
2223 section 3 and the draft successor to that document both explicitly
state that the RFC Editor uses nroff.

> We expect such uses to grow once XML sources   
> are easily available. In fact, the submission tool itself is expected to  
> extract useful metadata from XML sources.

I suspect that similar metadata could be extracted from nroff source,
at least if a suitable macro package (e.g. as described in
draft-lilly-using-troff) is used.

> What would be the motivation for uploading nroff sources?

In addition to extraction of metadata,

o nroff is used by the RFC-Editor (RFC 2223 section 3); keeping the
  same source format from initial draft through RFC production can ease
  the workload for authors and the RFC Editor

o automatic generation of plain text, PostScript, PDF, HTML (including
  line diagrams, tables, data formats, etc.), preserving page layout,
  from single source

o (if a suitable macro package is used) no need to upload boilerplate;
  provided that the (IETF copy of the) macro package is maintained,
  up-to-date boilerplate can be generated automatically

o ability for authors w/o access to formatting tools to upload easily-
  produced document source which can be used to produce a formatted
  draft
 
> I understand   
> that some folks prefer to create drafts using nroff, MS Word, or other  
> formats, but what would be the primary benefit of uploading those sources  
> to IETF repositories?

For nroff, see above.  As I haven't suggested other formats, I have no
comments at this time regarding putative benefits attributable to them.

> And if nroff sources are accepted, should we accept   
> MS Word and other source formats?

For me, source formats other than nroff are uninteresting (i.e. "I
don't care").

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 19:38:21 -0400

>state that the RFC Editor uses nroff.

See slides 24, 61, and 62 of ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc-editor/tutorial62.pdf

		--Prof. Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 16:29:26 -0700 (PDT)

> state that the RFC Editor uses nroff.

Yes, but speaking from personal experience, that doesn't mean they'll use
_your_ nroff sources. I stopped bothering to send in my nroff sources when I
found out that the RFC Editor wasn't using it (this despite having tried to use
the same macro package in the same way, and having switched from a much better
system than nroff in the first place in order to be RFC Editor friendly).

Shortly after finding out about this I switched to using xml2rfc, in part
because Marshall spent considerable time aligning its nroff output with the RFC
Editor's needs. And some time after that it became possible to send the RFC
Editor the XML source and have them use it. I haven't looked back since.

> > extract useful metadata from XML sources.

Exactly. And powerful tools to assist in this sort of extraction are readily
available.

> draft-lilly-using-troff) is used.

Bruce, with all due respect, the effort you have expended on developing this
seems to me to be headed in the wrong direction. IMO the place we are at with
xml2rfc and the RFC Editor's acceptance of the format is much better than
anything can ever get from any scheme that is based on nroff as the primary
format.

>   the workload for authors and the RFC Editor

See above. Use of xml2rfc accomplishes this goal. Use of nroff does not.

>   line diagrams, tables, data formats, etc.), preserving page layout,

All possible with the xml2rc format.

>   up-to-date boilerplate can be generated automatically

Xml2rfc has been realigned each time the boilerplate requirements have changed.
This has proved to be tremendously convenient.

>   produced document source which can be used to produce a formatted
 
IMO neither nroff source nor XML source qualify as "easily produced". But the
number of tools for producing and vetting XML is large and growing. (I
personally use something called "Exchanger XML Editor".) I don't think the same
can be said for nroff.

				Ned

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 04:12:50 +0200

> ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc-editor/tutorial62.pdf

1.5 MB unreadable with Acrobat Reader 3.0 on an OS/2 system :-(

---

From: Sandy Wills <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 22:42:12 -0400

> 1.5 MB unreadable with Acrobat Reader 3.0 on an OS/2 system :-(

reads cleanly with Acrobat Reader 7.0 on a WinXP PeeCee, so it's a good 
file, but the authors probably (inadvertently) turned the "backwards 
compatible with prehistoric software" switch off.

(I, too preferred OS2 over the Evil Empire, but it just got to be too 
much trouble so I have succumbed to the Dark Side)

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 04:59:10 +0200

Sandy Wills wrote:
 
> I, too preferred OS2 over the Evil Empire, but it just got
> to be too much trouble so I have succumbed to the Dark Side

At least you have now an OS without Adobe fonts, so you won't
feel betrayed and deserted.  Maybe I'll admit that I'm the
last V.90 OS/2 user worldwide next year.  OTOH Open Office can
create perfectly readable PDFs, even with colours.  Bye, Frank

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 11:52:56 +0200

Well, I thought I'd try something daring. We have people
arguing about xml versus nroff (again). If you write Internet
Drafts, try this toy (and only vote once, please...).
If the toy doesn't work, don't blame me... I just found the
site with Google.

http://www.internationalvoting.com/int3/ask.cgi?pid=22-143

    Brian

---

From: Jeroen Massar <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 12:23:03 +0200

> http://www.internationalvoting.com/int3/ask.cgi?pid=22-143

As this is the tools discussion after all, might it maybe be a good tool
to have a voting tool for the IETF?

Just like the above, except that the chairs can see the email addresses
that people gave when they voted. They could then check this list
against the list that has actually been signed up on the wg's
mailinglist and filter out discrepancies, might these exist.

Thus a following process could be made:

- WG Chair adds a vote (topic,description,options,enddate)
- Tool posts this new vote to the WG's list.
- WG members (*1) read this message and go to the URL
  that is given in the message
- WG member votes
- Tool sends a confirmation, to verify that this user
  is really that user that just voted.
- WG member confirms his/her/it's/* vote.
- Tool closes the vote
- Tool sends results to the list

The pro of this procedure is that votes can always be reviewed, checked,
they are easily accounted for etc. And best of all, it doesn't require
one to be present at eg a meeting, so if for instance there would be a
vote during a meeting, even remote participants can be in the vote. Only
requirement then would be that people are able to read their email
where-ever they are, but that should not be a problem for technical
folks would it ? :)

Single side-effect I quickly can come up with though would be that
people who are reading the WG maillist using an exploder address will
come out in the votes as 'bogus' as they are not signed up.
These folks could of course be asked under which address they are signed
up or some other procedure. There are not likely many, though one never
knows for sure of course. This "you are not on the mailinglist" can of
course be handled by the tool. Other side-effects, raise your voice.

*1) If you are not on the list, how else will you know what they are
talking about, thus why should you vote? ;)

Greets,
 Jeroen

---

From: Bruce Lilly <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 07:52:19 -0400

On Tue April 5 2005 23:56, Alex Rousskov wrote:

> I suspect
> there is something specific to xml2rfc plain text output that a simple
> script can detect while grepping through the drafts archive.

Such as line breaks in the middle of words, followed by loss of
indentation?

N.B. no smiley.

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 14:03:00 +0200

> Such as line breaks in the middle of words, followed by loss of

So what?  The nice thing about an XML format is that if you don't like 
the representation you can change it without changing the source.  Isn't 
that nice?!

Eliot

---

From: Bruce Lilly <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 09:38:40 -0400

On Tue April 5 2005 19:29, [email-masked] wrote:

> _your_ nroff sources.

True.  But the opportunity is there.

> anything can ever get from any scheme that is based on nroff as the primary

I've spent about the same amount of time and effort in developing troff
macros as on trying to use xml2rfc (the biggest difficulty being (not)
finding a suitably productive XML editor).  Even if the macros are not
useful to anybody else, they're useful to me; I have 5 drafts currently
in various stages produced using them.  All I have to show for roughly
the same effort in the XML direction is a somewhat better understanding
of some XML arcana and loss of respect for some products which heavily
hype XML output but which seem incapable of producing RFC-specific XML
without major effort (e.g. OpenOffice/StarOffice).  In some cases, some
heavily-hyped document preparation tools seem incapable of producing
simple plain (formatted) text (such as is required for I-Ds)!

> All possible with the xml2rc format.

Tools for producing complex tables, data format diagrams, mathematical
equations, line drawings, chemical diagrams, graphs, and formatted ABNF
are readily available for use with troff/nroff.  I no of none
specifically for use with xml2rfc (though I suppose with some effort
some of the troff-based tools could be adapted).

> This has proved to be tremendously convenient.

Ditto for the macros (as of this morning, there's an update that
incorporates the latest versions of 1id-guidelines.txt,
ID-Checklist.html (formerly ID-nits), and the change in boilerplate
rules scheduled to go into effect a month from today.
 
> IMO neither nroff source nor XML source qualify as "easily produced".

A text editor -- any text editor -- suffices for nroff source.  That
includes vi, emacs, textpad (MS Windows), SiED (PalmOS), etc.  In
theory, there exist commercial XML editors for PalmOS, but I suspect
thay they are less productive than the ones on other platforms.

> But the 

The number of text editors is very large and probably growing.

The biggest problem with XML editors is that they are unproductive.
Editing XML in all of the ones I've seen goes something like:

1. hunt for mouse
2. move cursor to nondescript icon and click
3. try to figure out what it is
4. type a few characters of text
5. go to step 1

(or see http://www.ivritype.com/xml/) [no, I didn't write it and I
don't care about MS Windows programs]

Conversely, nroff source can be generated directly from a keyboard; no
need to embark on wild mouse chases.

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 16:04:19 +0200

Bruce Lilly wrote:
> ...

I am producing XML with a text editor as well. Plugins allow 
one-keystroke syntax checks (== run it through an XML parser) or preview 
of HTML (== display it in a browser with XSLT).

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 17:03:26 +0300 (EEST)

> thay they are less productive than the ones on other platforms.
[...]

> 4. type a few characters of text

I can't understand why you basically say that nroff can be typed 
manually, but XML requires an editor.

I've never used an XML editor and have.. what, a couple of dozen 
drafts, many of them RFCs already.   I've used solely xml2rfc for 
about 1.5 years now.  Nor do I have plans to use an XML editor.

Prior to XML I used custom nroff macros which I also edited manually.

A good text editor is your friend.  That applies equally to nroff and 
xml2rfc.  For those who want fancy (but maybe not user-friendly) 
WYSIWYG editors, those exist but are definitely not required.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

---

From: Bruce Lilly <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 10:32:11 -0400

On Wed April 6 2005 08:03, Eliot Lear wrote:
> So what?

So if the primary purpose of a piece of software is to produce
properly-formatted text documents, and it fails at that task, all bets
are off (i.e. if it fails to produce *correct* results, being fast,
cheap, small, flashy, self-contained, portable, etc, usually don't
matter; and in this case being slow, requiring multiple external
programs etc. are simply additional baggage).

> The nice thing about an XML format is that if you don't like  

Not if the primary output is unusable.  But maybe I missed your point...

---

From: Bill Fenner <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 06:49:53 -0800

On Apr 6, 2005 5:38 AM, Bruce Lilly <[email-masked]> wrote:
> [mouse,icon,click,type a bit,mouse,...]

I've found that I can mostly avoid the mouse using XMLmind's XML
editor and my xml2rfc plugin
(http://rtg.ietf.org/~fenner/ietf/xml2rfc-xxe/).  xxe has been
designed to have keyboard shortcuts for most common operations and
I've tried to continue that (e.g., "enter" to insert a new paragraph
or split the current one at the cursor).

I have to admit that I use nroff about 75% of the time and XML about
25%, I'm much happier about the postscript/PDF output options from
nroff than from XML, and I can't imagine having written the 120-page
PIM spec in XML.

  Bill

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 16:55:11 +0200

> Not if the primary output is unusable.  But maybe I missed your point...

Yes.  Don't like the software?  Write your own...

Eliot

---

From: Bill Fenner <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 08:27:50 -0800

On Apr 6, 2005 7:10 AM, Alex Rousskov <[email-masked]> wrote:
> On Wed, 2005/04/06 (MDT), <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > nroff than from XML,
> To be fair, poor output quality is not XML's fault, it is tool's fault.
> Popular tools improve with time (and IETF can influence/speedup such
> improvement if needed).

Very true - I'm just talking abot the current state of affairs.

> > and I can't imagine having written the 120-page PIM spec in XML.
> 
> My largest XML-based RFC is only 60 pages, but I do not see why 120 pages
> would be "too long" for XML. Can you clarify? Just curious...

Well, I think the main reason is that any time we needed custom
handling for a topic it was easy to write a macro to handle it; the
same thing in XML would probably mean adding preprocessors (perhaps an
xsl transform).  We also ended up with some tables that required some
pretty fine tuning to get to fit in 7x characters; my gut tells me
that would be harder to do in XML.  Finally, the optional figures in
the postscript version would not have been supported by the currently
available tools.

  Bill

---

From: Jeffrey Hutzelman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 12:29:40 -0400

> to have a voting tool for the IETF?

"We reject kings, presidents, and voting..."

This isn't 100% true, of course; there are a very few specific cases where 
"voting" is used to make a decision.  They tend to be somewhat specialized 
(for example, the system the IESG uses to decide whether to approve 
documents) and have specially-designed tools.

I don't think a general-purpose voting tool is needed or appropriate.

-- Jeff

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 10:16:21 +0200

Jeffrey Hutzelman wrote:
> This isn't 100% true, of course; there are a very few specific cases 
> where "voting" is used to make a decision.  They tend to be somewhat 
> specialized (for example, the system the IESG uses to decide whether to 
> approve documents) and have specially-designed tools.
> 

But we *often* take straw polls in f2f meetings, and that's very hard
to do by email.

    Brian

---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 07:18:15 -0400

> mailinglist and filter out discrepancies, might these exist.

Maybe this is pointing out the obvious, but discounting input because
it comes from someone not subscribed to the list is Poor
Practice. Often, the most critical (but also the best) reviews come
from folk outside of the WG, who are not following the work closely,
and are reading a draft entirely on its own merits, and from a broader
perspective than the WG might have.

> talking about, thus why should you vote? ;)

Because an AD, chair or other concerned individual actively solicits
input from someone who is not actively following a WG (or is currently
focusing their priorities elsewhere)?

One of the realities of the IETF today (and for some time) is that it
is simply not possible for one person to closely follow all the
activities they might want to (or are expert in).

Thomas

---

From: [email-masked] (Scott Bradner)
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 08:58:03 -0400 (EDT)

> But we *often* take straw polls in f2f meetings,

but we do not count hands - we look to see if there is a clear
difference between hands one way and or the other

Scott

---

From: "Alex Rousskov" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 09:02:22 -0600

On Wed, 2005/04/06 (MDT), <[email-masked]> wrote:

> A text editor -- any text editor -- suffices for nroff source.
> That includes vi, emacs, textpad (MS Windows), SiED (PalmOS), etc.

Same for editing XML sources, of course. One does not have to use
fancy XML-aware editors to edit XML, especially draft sources that
do not use much markup. FWIW, I do not use such an editor when
writing my drafts.

Can we stop this debate? It is clear to me that there are people who love  
nroff and people who prefer XML. There is no point in discussing the  
advantages of one imperfect format over the other imperfect format,  
especially in such a biased way.

What we should debate instead is whether ID Submission tool requirements  
should be modified to include nroff sources submission. So far, I heard of  
a single argument why that change should be done: "because the RFC Editor  
is using submitted nroff sources". Others have said it is not true. We can  
ask the Editor to tell us the truth. Meanwhile, are there any more  
arguments for nroff sources to be processed by the ID Submission tool?

Thank you,

Alex.

---

From: "Alex Rousskov" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 11:13:41 -0600

On Wed, 2005/04/06 (MDT), <[email-masked]> wrote:

> xsl transform).

Yes, I use preprocessors (though not XSLT). I think that writing a  
preprocessor is equivalent to writing marcos. Some people can write XML  
preprocessors faster than nroff macros and vice versa, naturally.

> We also ended up with some tables that required some
> that would be harder to do in XML.

That depends, I think. If you typeset your table manually, then you can  
use artwork to include that into XML sources. You would have to call it a  
Figure then, I guess :-(.

If you use nroff to format most of the table except a few special places,  
then current XML DTD is not that flexible.

> Finally, the optional figures in

Very true.

Note that the last two arguments (and even the first one, to an extent)  
seem to be unrelated to document length.

Thank you,

Alex.

---

From: "Alex Rousskov" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 09:10:44 -0600

Thank you,

Alex.

---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 09:39:27 -0400

> difference between hands one way and or the other

I agree that this is exactly how we should be using hums/polls.

But I'm sure many of us have also seen cases where a consensus call is
made and it is not immediately/obviously clear (to all) just how clear
the difference between the two sides really is. Or to someone outside
the room who wasn't there.

Having hand counts makes it possible to have a more honest discussion
(both during and after the fact) about just how close the call really
is, how much participation there was, etc.

If folk are unhappy about a particular call, but they are not really
able to challenge it, it can reinforce the perception (rightly or
wrongly) that the IETF processes are unfair.

But as others also note, there are also downsides with "voting". And
there have been cases where "packing the vote" have taken place. The
most obvious example I recall was in the case of IDN WG. It is exactly
in these cases that we need to have good/strong chairs that recognize
when this is happening and factor it into the consensus call.

Thomas

---

From: "Alex Rousskov" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 21:56:18 -0600

On Tue, 2005/04/05 (MDT), <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> On Tue April 5 2005, Bruce Lilly wrote:
>
> _your_ nroff sources. I stopped bothering to send in my nroff sources  
> when I found out that the RFC Editor wasn't using it

That was my (possibly incorrect) impression as well:
RFC Editor creates nroff from XML or plain text.
Thus, I did not consider nroff as "source" in this context
(note that I did not say RFC Editor is not using nroff).
Again, I could be wrong.

However, I would like to avoid focusing too much attention on current RFC  
Editor practices, regardless of whether you  consider them perfect or  
arcane. I am sure that folks will write many tools to extract info from  
XML drafts once XML drafts are available. I would be surprised if the same  
would happen to nroff sources, especially long-term, especially in  
competition with XML. There are many reasons, including general knowledge  
of the subject and libraries availability.

Does anybody have any statistics showing the percentage of current  
Internet-Drafts written using xml2rfc? I do not volunteer, but I suspect  
there is something specific to xml2rfc plain text output that a simple  
script can detect while grepping through the drafts archive. Can the same  
be done for nroff? These stats would help us to understand at least the  
current environment better...

Thank you,

Alex.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 16:36:39 +0200

Regardless of the interesting side-discussion about 'voting',
what the toy shows after about a day is:

prefer nroff: 8
prefer xml:  37
neither:      9

which implies a few hundred abstentions, of course.

    Brian

---

From: Jeroen Massar <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 18:29:38 +0200

> perspective than the WG might have.

This was not obvious, at least did not directly jump into my mind to me
when I wrote the above part, but indeed is very logical.

On Thu, 2005-04-07 at 10:26 -0400, Bruce Lilly wrote:

> In short, quality of argument trumps (if the chair is chairing)
> quantity.  Voting (incl. as "straw polls") only measures quantity, not
> quality.

And I fully agree with that statement too.

Greets,
 Jeroen

---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 10:47:09 +0100

I would also be interesting to know how many use Microsoft Word
to produce drafts.

Stewart

---

From: "Elwyn davies" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2005 11:32:18 +0100

FYI I am an ex-Word user, now fully converted to xml2rfc.

I thought Word was a convenient way to conform to Draft style and handle
revision control but was frustrated by the toolchain.  The main problem I
found was the badly broken 'Generic Text Printer' driver which has not
worked properly for a number of versions of Word in my experience. Symptoms
include:
- unilaterally changing the paragraph width so that it outputs one character
on each line starting from some random point in the document
- unilaterally changing the fount height to a microscopic value so that text
is converted to a horizontal line in random paragraphs

Microsoft are in denial about these bugs.  Presumably there is not much call
for the Generic Text Printer. (I must admit I haven't bothered to try it in
my most recent version of Word, but I wouldn't hold my breath).

I am aware of other possible ways to get the ASCII output but they are all
just as flaky and tedious.

I'll live with the need for balanced tags (I am pretty adept at detecting
what has gone wrong by now) and some other minor irritations for the sake of
knowing that I won't end up fighting the tools when trying to get a draft
out close to the deadlines (when of course the random bugs noted above
always strike!)

I know several other authors who have defected for similar reasons.

Regards,
Elwyn

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
> Stewart Bryant
> Sent: 08 April 2005 10:47
> To: Brian E Carpenter
> Cc: [email-masked]; Bruce Lilly; Alex Rousskov; [email-masked]; IETF
> TOOLS discussion
> Subject: Re: Last Call: 'Requirements for IETF Draft Submission Toolset'
> to Informational RFC
>

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 13:38:50 +0200

I deliberately wanted to make the poll binary, but my
assumption is that 'neither' must mainly represent that
proprietary solution. I can't imagine many people generate
I-Ds using a plain text editor, and intuitively OpenOffice
doesn't seem likely either.

It's easy to create your own poll at the same site.

We're at 11/43/10 now, by the way. It looks as if XML suits
about 2/3 of our authors, but we have a substantial nroff
party.

    Brian

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 08:27:01 -0400

> what the toy shows after about a day is:

I wonder how many of those have actually written a draft using both?

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 15:14:17 +0200

> I wonder how many of those have actually written a draft using both?

Isn't it sufficient for one to have to have suffered *roff in other 
contexts?

---

From: Bill Fenner <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2005 10:09:41 -0700

> I wonder how many of those have actually written a draft using both?

I picked "neither" since I use both and don't have a strong
preference.  nroff gives me much more control over the actual
formatting, xml lets me leave the tool maintenance to someone else and
I do see the advantage of well-formed metadata.

(otoh I have nroff macros to help in writing MIBs, which e.g., create
the SEQUENCE so it's never out of sync with the objects in a table...
can't think of how I would do that in XML offhand)

  Bill

---

From: Francis Dupont <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 19:55:22 +0200

In your previous mail you wrote:

   I deliberately wanted to make the poll binary, but my
   assumption is that 'neither' must mainly represent that
   proprietary solution. I can't imagine many people generate
   I-Ds using a plain text editor,

=> why? I used a plain text editor before moving to xml2rfc (xml edited
with a plain text editor too) because of the new boiler stuff pressure...

   and intuitively OpenOffice doesn't seem likely either.

=> to prefer emacs to OOo is a subtle way to like open source (:-).

   
=> nroff is not so bad. The problem is the community which supported it
moved to Latex many years ago... And for short I-Ds direct writing is
easier/faster/etc. BTW IMHO the best tool should be so painful that
I-Ds would be very small (:-)?

Regards

[email-masked]

PS: what we need is a rfc2xml. It seems there is a secret rfc2nroff...

---

From: Bruce Lilly <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2005 14:57:00 -0400

> doesn't seem likely either.

The question was worded to indicate a preference.  Therefore, the
"neither" option covers not only "none of the above (other)", but
also "no preference (don't care)".  Which illustrates another pitfall
of polling/voting; the precise wording of the question, interpretation
of that wording by respondents, and interpretation by those evaluating
results play substantial roles.  Wording questions in a neutral, fair,
balanced, clear, and concise manner is a non-trivial exercise.

---

From: Bruce Lilly <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2005 15:20:40 -0400

> => to prefer emacs to OOo is a subtle way to like open source (:-).

OOo is one of those that I mentioned doesn't seem to be able to
generate formatted plain text with appropriate parameters (in
addition to apparently not being able to generate RFC-specific
XML).

> moved to Latex many years ago...

Oh?  One of the reasons that I haven't used TeX (and things like LaTeX
which are layered on it) is the difficulty of getting suitable plain
text output.

> BTW IMHO the best tool should be so painful that 

The size of the boilerplate alone precludes that, unfortunately.  And
it gets worse next month when the secretariat stops accepting "he" (or
"she", as the case may be) as an alternative to "he or she" in that
boilerplate.

> PS: what we need is a rfc2xml. It seems there is a secret rfc2nroff...

Going from formatted RFC or draft to troff source is fairly easy. As
text will be re-flowed into paragraphs, it's mostly a matter of
inserting the right directives between paragraphs, for section
headings, etc.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 09 Apr 2005 15:05:22 -0700 (PDT)

> I wonder how many of those have actually written a draft using both?

Let's see. I've done lots of drafts with both, using (in the nroff case)
several different macro packages. I have also produced several very large
non-RFC documents (in the thousand page range) using XML, nroff, and a variety
of other tools.

XML is the hands-down winner IMO. In fact I now use xml2rfc routinely for
non-IETF-related documents of various sorts.

				Ned

P.S. Anyone who uses an XML editor that requires mouse use which gets in the
way of simply entering text is using a crap tool. Plenty of alternatives exist
that work properly.

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2005 08:40:47 +0300

[email-masked] wrote:

>XML is the hands-down winner IMO. 
>  
>
I agree. I have written a fair number of drafts (some of them lengthy)
using word, nroff, latex, and XML.  There's really no contest, XML is
the way to go.

Of course, I can imagine some toolset improvements but these
improvements are minor compared to some of the major (imho)
issues that the other alternatives have. And I can also imagine some
special purpose support (mibs, state tables, you name it) that people
may need. Personally, when I have that kind of issues I usually end up
writing a script that does some pre- or postprocessing to achieve what
is needed. Interestingly, I run into this on a regular basis when using
nroff, latex, and word. But I have needed only minor things in the last
couple of years when I have been using XML.

>way of simply entering text is using a crap tool. Plenty of alternatives exist
Just use emacs, that's what I do :-)

--Jari

---

From: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2005 15:44:03 -0600

>"she", as the case may be) as an alternative to "he or she" in that

I don't understand this point, can you expound on it for those of us that 
don't know about it?

cheers,
James

                                *******************
                 Truth is not to be argued... it is to be presented

---

From: "Alex Rousskov" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2005 18:16:39 -0600

> can't think of how I would do that in XML offhand)

You would use XML entities (recent xml2rfc versions have better support
for those) and/or a preprocessor. I would not be surprised if xml2rfc
eventually has native preprocessing capabilities (i.e., macros).
Virtually any large document and many small ones need them.

Alex.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 13:12:41 +0200

> balanced, clear, and concise manner is a non-trivial exercise.

Indeed. We mustn't extrapolate too much from the results of this
or any other simple poll.

   Brian

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 13:15:54 +0200

James M. Polk wrote:
> I don't understand this point, can you expound on it for those of us 
> that don't know about it?

See http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf-announce/current/msg01093.html

    Brian

---

From: Kireeti Kompella <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 12:56:52 -0700 (PDT)

> I wonder how many of those have actually written a draft using both?

I have.  I'm a recent convert to xml, and hugely prefer xml, to the
extent that I have converted most resubmissions of mine from nroff to
xml.

Kireeti.
-------

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 11:41:22 +0200

I think I'm going to declare the toy poll closed. What it shows
is:

  prefer nroff: 11
  prefer xml:   52
  neither:      11

We can't claim statistical significance, but I think
we can see that, without discriminating against
traditional plain text, we help a majority of authors
by making XML submission straightforward.

    Brian