Re: document writing/editing tools used by IETF

[Ladislav Lhotka <[e-mail]>]

On 26. 02. 21 16:48, Behcet Sarikaya wrote:
> 
> 
> On Fri, Feb 26, 2021 at 2:06 AM Ladislav Lhotka <[e-mail]
> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> 
>     On 26. 02. 21 8:36, Carsten Bormann wrote:
>     > On 2021-02-26, at 03:06, Larry Masinter <[e-mail]
>     <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>     >>
>     >> For collaboration, there's a generation of collaborative tools
>     from Google Docs to Dropbox and Microsoft tools that are a lot
>     better than GitHub for collaboration.
>     >
>     > I’m sorry, Larry, you’d have to have a very weird sense of
>     “better” to believe that.
>     >
>     > I have had extensive exposure to the MS-Word type of
>     “collaboration” (I was the editor of RFC 3095 which was done in
>     MS-Word, with 16 collaborators).  The English language does not have
>     words to describe that experience.
> 
>     +1
> 
>     For me, one of the greatest virtues of the IETF work style has always
>     been that I wasn't forced to use MS Office (or similar software, which
>     is often even worse).
> 
> 
> 
> I think a lot of people would like to use Word because of wide
> spread use of MS Office in workplace. It is almost standard there.
> Appreciating this even Apple comes up with Office for MAC software.

That's fine, but it doesn't mean that Word (or Office Open XML) format
is best for distributed development, archivation and exchange of RFC
documents. RFCs written in 1996 version of Word would not be readable
with today's version.

> 
> I disagree with those who say MS-Word collaboration is not good, that
> means you don't know Word well :)
This is perfectly possible. I just concluded long ago that using Word is
detrimental to my mental health, I think I was trying to integrate texts
from a dozen or so contributors at that time.

> 
> Having said that I have always preferred to use XML2RFC tool and
> continue to use it. I am sure some people will always be happy using Word.

Certainly, I just don't want to be forced to do the same.

Lada

> 
> Behcet
> 
>     Lada
> 
>     >
>     > For hacking out a quick draft, shared editors like Google Docs are
>     fine (we mostly use hedgedoc née codimd née hackmd for that, and it
>     sure is fun).  For structured, controlled collaboration in a large
>     team, nothing beats VCS systems like git, and github has a lot of
>     mindshare in the tools around that process (issue tracking etc.). 
>     >
>     > It is simply hilarious to imagine the QUIC or HTTPBIS WGs typing
>     away at a shared Google doc.  That’s not how it works.  Specs are
>     code, and there is a good reason why creating good documents (like
>     the core ones of the above WGs) benefits from experience in
>     collaborating on code.
>     >
>     > Grüße, Carsten
>     >
> 
>     -- 
>     Ladislav Lhotka
>     Head, CZ.NIC Labs
>     PGP Key ID: 0xB8F92B08A9F76C67
> 

-- 
Ladislav Lhotka
Head, CZ.NIC Labs
PGP Key ID: 0xB8F92B08A9F76C67