Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!bionet!ames!think!mintaka!daemon
From: sra@lcs.mit.edu (Rob Austein)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Comment on RFC1124 (?)
Message-ID: 
Date: 28 Sep 89 23:30:10 GMT
References: <5446@asylum.SF.CA.US> <[A.ISI.EDU]28-Sep-89.07:35:08.CERF>
Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius)
Organization: ITS Preservation Society
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In-reply-to: CERF@A.ISI.EDU's message of 28 Sep 89 11:35:00 GMT

Vint,

GNU Emacs, at least, has a major mode called "picture" which somewhat
eases the task of drawing pictures in ASCII.  It's not perfect, and
could use some further development, in particular to do useful things
with mice, but it's a start.

I agree with Karl completely.  I haven't got the room to keep an
entire hardcopy RFC manual set in my office, let alone at home, let
alone take it with me when I travel.  Pictures are nice and there are
some things that can be said much more easily with pictures, but I
can't quote chapter and verse of a picture in a mail message (unless
it's in ASCII) and I can't read it to somebody over the phone.  I
think that until the available tools for transmitting arbitrary
pictures become as cheap and available as home terminals are now, the
core of any RFC really ought to remain remain English text.

I would be content with ASCII versions of RFCs which replaced all the
pretty pictures with little boxes that read:

	+-------------------------------------------------+
	|						  |
	|   If you had a PostScript (TM) printer, you'd   |
	|   see a pretty picture here.  You lose.         |
	|						  |
	+-------------------------------------------------+

One other thing.  According to RFC-1111, page 3: "Since PostScript is
not editable, an editable source version of the document must also be
submitted."  This is entirely reasonable.  Perhaps this same editable
source version be made available to the rest of us after the RFC
Editor has performed his office?  This would help somewhat even if the
rest of the question degenerates to an insoluable religious debate.

--Rob Austein, MIT