Re: [rfc-i] Not even sort of a Poll: RFCs with page numbers (pretty please) ?

["John R. Levine" <[e-mail]>]

> On 27-Oct-20 10:14, John Scudder wrote:
>> The argument that page numbers are harmful as a way of referring to a section of the RFC is reasonable.
>>
>> The argument that page numbers are harmful for *any* *purpose* *whatever* is not reasonable. To offer one glaringly obvious counterexample, people (I, for one) sometimes print RFCs for the purpose of reading them. Sometimes we want to make use of some kind of facility for indexing from a list of headings to facilitate direct access to the right section of the pile of printout. A table of contents, in short. This is literally what tables of contents were invented for. They remain useful for this purpose… unless some bright spark chooses to remove the page numbers from them, because they forgot what tables of contents are FOR.

This whole argument seems to miss a large part of the motivation for the 
new RFC format.  These days, most people read RFCs on screens, not on 
paper.  I can't remember the last time I printed out an RFC, but I look at 
them on my computer screen or my tablet all the time.  That's why we have 
the HTML and PDF formats that display well on screens, and the HTML even 
adjusts dynamically to the window size.  It's also why they have a table 
of contents that links to document sections. When looking at either the 
HTML or the PDF, you can click on a TOC entry and go directly to that part 
of the document.  As Julian mentioned, every section header has an anchor 
so you can share the links with other people.

While I can believe that some people still print out RFCs to read, it is 
surely shrinking as those of us old enough to remember the smell of ditto 
fluid are supplanted by people who've grown up with laptops and tablets.

Regards,
John Levine, [e-mail], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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