Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!srhqla!nrcvax!ihm
From: ihm@NRC.COM (Ian H. Merritt)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re:  Comment on RFC1124 (?)
Message-ID: <366@nrcvax.NRC.COM>
Date: 3 Oct 89 17:04:43 GMT
References: <8909290636.AA04602@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: ihm@nrcvax.UUCP (Ian H. Merritt)
Organization: The Frobboz Magic Dungeon Co., Inc.
Lines: 48

bkc@OMNIGATE.CLARKSON.EDU (Brad Clements) says:
>Karl Auerbach has proposed that postscript RFC's be banned, presumably because
>trying to index keywords in a postscript file is a pain, and not because 
>he feels that postscript printers are too obscure. (is that right?)
>
>I don't mind postscript format, but I think the question of keyword indexing
>should be addressed. 
>
>It would be useful if authors of any document that is shipped in postscript
>were to add a postscript prologue to the file with the proper keyword indexes.
>
	.
	.
	.

I agree that a keywords section might be useful, but this would not
address the main issue.  When searching an RFC, you may not be looking
for a keyword that is likely to appear in such a list.  For example,
probably the most common grep searches I make of the RFC directory
look for some phrase or tag that I remember reading in the past, but
can't quite recall the document from which it came.  In this case, the
context of the line around the hit is also useful to help separate
likely matches vs. coincidences.

Like one of the earlier postings said, I too bring up RFC's in EMACS
more often than any other method of viewing.  The ASCII-text pictures,
while maybe a bit difficult to create, have the advantage that they
can be viewed in this context.  This is very handy.

One other, perhaps less significant point is that many sites archive
these online locally to avoid the necessity to continually transfer
them over the net.  PostScript images are BIG!  Since grep isn't
particularly useful on them anyway, I keep the PostScript ones
compressed.  Even so, they are still larger than most RFC's
uncompressed.

	184 -rw-r--r--  1     172667 Sep 15 09:27 rfc1119.ps.Z
	120 -rw-r--r--  1     109731 Sep 20 14:06 rfc1124.ps.Z

If RFC's were available in dual formats (i.e. a .ps file and a .txt
file), I would definitely keep the .txt file online.  The .ps file,
however, I might be inclined to leave behind.

	-i

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