IETF Logo Mail Archive

Re: [irsg] Resending: Page numbers in RFCs questions / preferences

Carsten Bormann <cabo@tzi.org> Mon, 26 October 2020 12:55 UTC

Return-Path: <cabo@tzi.org>
X-Original-To: wgchairs@ietfa.amsl.com
Delivered-To: wgchairs@ietfa.amsl.com
Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ietfa.amsl.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 57C023A0AB5 for <wgchairs@ietfa.amsl.com>; Mon, 26 Oct 2020 05:55:45 -0700 (PDT)
X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at amsl.com
X-Spam-Flag: NO
X-Spam-Score: -1.898
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.898 tagged_above=-999 required=5 tests=[BAYES_00=-1.9, RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_H4=0.001, RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_WL=0.001, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001] autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no
Received: from mail.ietf.org ([4.31.198.44]) by localhost (ietfa.amsl.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id JYvyw01bzAqo for <wgchairs@ietfa.amsl.com>; Mon, 26 Oct 2020 05:55:43 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from gabriel-vm-2.zfn.uni-bremen.de (gabriel-vm-2.zfn.uni-bremen.de [134.102.50.17]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by ietfa.amsl.com (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 507943A0AAF for <wgchairs@ietf.org>; Mon, 26 Oct 2020 05:55:43 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from [192.168.217.118] (p548dcc60.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [84.141.204.96]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by gabriel-vm-2.zfn.uni-bremen.de (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 4CKZZN4W7KzybZ; Mon, 26 Oct 2020 13:55:40 +0100 (CET)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 13.4 \(3608.120.23.2.4\))
Subject: Re: [irsg] Resending: Page numbers in RFCs questions / preferences
From: Carsten Bormann <cabo@tzi.org>
In-Reply-To: <CADaq8je8gMwAkOndTNJ9ndwzOZb2HQMZrCUJ5wNUjw-6ax9QtA@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2020 13:55:40 +0100
Cc: Toerless Eckert <tte@cs.fau.de>, WG Chairs <wgchairs@ietf.org>, RFC Interest <rfc-interest@rfc-editor.org>
X-Mao-Original-Outgoing-Id: 625409740.232668-881a8d40b0a9addd462ddfb3e0a615b1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Message-Id: <35EFE952-7786-4E24-B228-9BEE51D3C876@tzi.org>
References: <20201026020433.GA19475@faui48f.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> <CADaq8je8gMwAkOndTNJ9ndwzOZb2HQMZrCUJ5wNUjw-6ax9QtA@mail.gmail.com>
To: David Noveck <davenoveck@gmail.com>
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.3608.120.23.2.4)
Archived-At: <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/wgchairs/Lzs3RE7m_fNAt0z8KwoymELlS7g>
X-BeenThere: wgchairs@ietf.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29
Precedence: list
List-Id: Working Group Chairs <wgchairs.ietf.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/options/wgchairs>, <mailto:wgchairs-request@ietf.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/wgchairs/>
List-Post: <mailto:wgchairs@ietf.org>
List-Help: <mailto:wgchairs-request@ietf.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/wgchairs>, <mailto:wgchairs-request@ietf.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:55:45 -0000

On 2020-10-26, at 11:51, David Noveck <davenoveck@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I think it happened with the conversion to v3 xml.  At that time, the 72-character-ragged-right .txt format ceased to be considered canonical (long overdue in my opinion).  As a result, in accord with some RFC that I was pointed to, a decision was made (by whom it wasn't clear) to make all TOCs the same, so that the pdf and text TOCs lost theirs since there was no way to add them to html which doesn't have them.  The logic is impeccable if you grant the premises and nobody ever considered rethinking the premises when it resulted in nearly useless printed documents. Sigh!

Obviously, with canonical XML, there is no good solution to this problem: Different renditions will have different concepts of pages, so the TOC’s won’t align.

(That is not a good argument for then finally choosing what is probably the worst possible solution to this problem.  I think what happened is that nobody thought about PDF where we continue to have pages, so there never really was a problem specific to retaining pages and thus page numbers in the TXT.)

Grüße, Carsten

v2.23.0 | Report a Bug | By Email