[rfc-i] A view askew: Was: Re: draft-flanagan-rfc-framework-02 composition tools

[sbanks at encrypted.net (Sarah Banks)]

Howdy,
	I thought I'd share a bit of feedback on my experiences editing documents here at the IETF. 

	I've been a word .doc template user, for three drafts now, and each time, much to the chagrin of my co-chair, I think I irritate the heck out of him. We've seen some strange things in trying to get this to pass nits and post; I can't generate the .prn or a .txt file on my mac that'll make the system happy; there's a list of quirks that goes on, but the point really was this. 

	I spend my days as a product manager buried in Word (and ppt... but I digress). I'm a decent word editor, and for me, when I saw that the word template was an option, it seemed a no-brainer. Why nroff when you can word? Why hassle with extraneous </t> when you can ignore the markup altogether?

	I'd been talking with Joe H., who shared his workflow, and I was intrigued. I'll admit, hassles with word aside, I was a little hesitant to try a new tool, given this experience with the word template, and our ability to work around it's problems. Indeed, in discussing the issues with my current draft authors, we decided to pull down the word template fresh from tools and try it anew. Alas, no such luck; when Fernando tried to submit it, the system complained. i'm sure there are things we're doing wrong; things we should fiddle with - but I'd point out that the whole appeal of using word was to alleviate the hassle, and I've yet to find a README file that goes with it :)

	Joe H shared his github link to the grunt/grunt server process, and I was pleasantly surprised. Yup, there's an upfront learning curve - I honestly find most tools that we generate assume we're already experienced draft writers, but reading through the markdown lit wasn't too hard, and figuring out how to insert links was 10 minutes of effort and fiddling with. It's been pretty awesome to edit, and see in real time what things look like, not to mention the automatic .xml and .txt files created along side my .md file. Of course, now I'm no longer the "new user" - I now have experience under my belt, and a network of folks I'm comfortable asking questions about.

	I find myself wanting to agree vehemently with Joe Touch's comments through the thread, and I don't know that I'd want to see the word template go away - although I'm not sure that's what's being said here - but I do think a walk through of the options for editing drafts, and perhaps pros/cons of the tools available could be provided/updated to make the newcomers a little more comfortable with the myriad of options available. As for me, I've made the leap from .doc to .md and am not looking back.

</2 cents>
Sarah