Re: [Tools-discuss] [rfc-i] Proposed survey on I-D authoring tools

Randy and Jay,

There's one thing that I think the current ecosystem is missing that I
would really enjoy using. As I've been writing RFCs and drafts since the
1980s, you can guess that I've used a whole bunch of different tools,
including editing raw NROFF, editing raw XMLv2 (I haven't yet tried that
with XMLv3), using the Word template, and so on. What I've settled on at
the moment is writing in Kramdown, which lets me concentrate more on the
content than on the formatting.

However, the one sourcing tool that I really enjoyed (and really miss) is
nroffedit, which had two sides on the display, one showing the raw nroff
and the other showing WYSIWYG formatted text, and both windows were
instantly and synchronously updated as you edited in either. Having such a
tool for either XMLv3 or Kramdown would be awesome!

Cheers,
Andy

On Thu, Oct 1, 2020 at 12:55 PM Randy Bush <randy@psg.com> wrote:

> > I am not so sure what the value of asking what people do today is. The
> > question that really matters is what people would do if they knew what
> > all the options were.
>
> actually, i don't really buy this.  what i use today differs from what i
> use 10 or 20 years ago, and i presume similarly going forward.
>
> what we have today, is close to a classic hourglass model, with an xml
> waist.  you can produce that however the heck you want.  and there seems
> to be a rich set of tools to produce the xml.  this seems a healthy
> ecosystem to me.
>
> and from the xml, the rfced can produce all the output formats.
>
> some really sharp and hard-working folk have produced a rich ecosystem
> of front ends.  this is great, as long as they are compatible with the
> back end.
>
> and we have a back end which is settling in from a major change.  i
> suspect we may not want to 'fix' it right now.
>
> hence my asking what all this is about.  i am trying to produce work,
> not chase this week's fashion in editing/formatting.
>
> randy
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