Re: [Tools-discuss] Why post text and not XML? (was: I-D statistics)

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

John,

Thanks for explaining.

In line...


On 17-Mar-24 07:51, John C Klensin wrote:
> 
> 
> --On Saturday, March 16, 2024 17:13 +1300 Brian E Carpenter
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>> ...
>> More confusingly, there are still a few current drafts
>> submitted as txt only. No XML at all. I wonder why we still
>> allow that, and what tools people are using. 

I certainly don't care about the XML as such; what I miss
is the HTML version, which is much nicer to read than either
the plain text or the HTMLized version. My problem statement
was too simple.

Is it possible for you to submit the .txt and the .html versions?

>> Doesn't this
>> create busywork if the document progresses?
> 
> As one of the offenders, I think I have explained this before
> but let me do it again.  Short answer: it is a side-effect of
> work that makes the document development process in WGs much
> more efficient in part because it makes "we have been over that
> before, in YYYYMM, and reached those conclusions because..."
> input much easier and more accessible.  It also helps in
> preparation of accurate final change summaries and
> acknowledgment easier and more accurate.  The "tools" are an
> emacs-clone editor with an XML mode and a handful of personal
> macros and templates.   The only "busywork" is stripping that
> stuff out just before the XML is handed to the RPC.

Good. I was concerned about the RPC having to synthesize the
XML from a plain text submission.

> 
>     =================
> 
> For anyone interested and in the hope of not having to repeat
> this again...
> 
> Especially for long, complex, and long-lived documents,
> especially those that are replacements, significant updates for
> earlier documents, or merges of others, I use extensive comments
> in the XML to track changes and decisions.   Other comments are
> used to provide information to, or prepare for discussions with,
> the RPC about why particular text phrasing and constructions or
> document organizations were chosen, etc.  With one current
> document, those comments add up to more that 30% of the size of
> the XML file.  Some of those comments are over 20 years old and
> have been carried forward from xml2rfc v1 files associated with
> previous documents.

Understood. The "modern" approach is of course to embed such
comments in GitHub issues, which tends to lead to self-censorship
of any "unkind" comments, and then the nit-picking takes place
on GitHub too.

> 
> Why not just post all of that information?  Because, given
> experience with the IETF community, it would be only a matter of
> time before someone, probably several someones, decided to
> nit-pick details of the comments or complain about the incorrect
> or unkind terminology in some of them, even some of the
> 20-year-old ones.  They are personal notes and neither I nor the
> community would need the wasted time that could be spent on the
> substantive parts of the document or on other work.  For those
> and other reasons, I don't want to share those comments, and
> hence the XML, with the community.  Too many of them are
> personal notes.  They could be edited into generally acceptable
> forms, but it would take significant work and time that could be
> better spent in other ways.
> 
> When the I-D is approved and handed off to the RPC for
> production and publishing, I prepare a version of the RFCXML
> file that contains only the comments that are likely to be
> helpful to the RPC or in conversations with them.   Certainly
> those that are relevant only to prior RFCs that the new document
> replaces are gone.  However that is a comment-by-comment editing
> job that typically takes some hours, not something I want to do
> with every I-D posting.
> 
> Could I establish conventions within the comments that would
> permit automatic removal such that there would be the
> copy/version I work on and an easily generated redacted one I
> could post?  Yes, probably, but that would be extra work too.
> Moreover, over the quarter-century since xml2rfc was introduced,
> my conventions have changed -- I have even used different
> conventions during the WG I-D development period and during IETF
> LC.  If I had perfect foresight around 2000, maybe, but...
> 
> So, not going to happen.  And if someone makes a rule that the
> XML must (MUST?) be posted, I've authored or edited my last long
> and/or complex and/or updating or replacing document.   Find
> someone else to do it.  Or conclude the IETF is not interested
> in the topic area any more.

Rules of course are made to be bypassed.

> 
> Maybe I'm the only one, but I suspect I'm not.

I don't know. Your usage is rational but I'm genuinely unsure about
the ones that have crossed my screen lately.

Regards
    Brian


> 
>      john
> 
> 
> 
> 
>