[rfc-i] Does the canonical RFC format need to be "readable" by developers and others?

[Joe Touch]

On 6/22/2012 8:14 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:
> On 2012-06-22 11:53, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
>> On 22 Jun 2012, at 11:41 , Julian Reschke wrote:
>>
>>> That is incorrect. Many part of the reference are optional;
>>> <abstract> certainly is.
>>
>> That's nice. But now tell me based on:
>>
>> http://xml.resource.org/authoring/draft-mrose-writing-rfcs.html#references
>>
>>
>> how do I make this happen:
>>
>> [1]  Cerf, V., "The Catenet Model for Internetworking," Information
>>       Processing Techniques Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects
>>       Agency, IEN 48, July 1978.
>>
>> The problem with XML2RFC is that it makes perfect sense once you're an
>> expert, but then, you first need to be an expert.
>
> There's a mailing list where you can ask for advice.
>
>> For people who already know XML I'm sure all of this is great, but for
>> those of us who don't know XML having to learn it to be able to write
>> drafts is cruel and unusual punishment.
>
> So is using Word, using Nroff, or formatting the plain text manually.
> The interesting question is which of these choices minimizes the pain
> and maximizes the quality of the output.

The entire world converged on Word. Sure, if you're a programmer and 
want to program when you write a doc, there are more "fun" alternatives, 
but it's going to be hard to argue that Word is more painful than other 
word processors.

Joe