Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!husc6!m2c!jjmhome!cpoint!martillo From: martillo@cpoint.UUCP (Joachim Carlo Santos Martillo) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: Comment on RFC1124 (?) Summary: Ecrasez l'Islam! Message-ID: <2633@cpoint.UUCP> Date: 28 Sep 89 16:15:51 GMT References: <5446@asylum.SF.CA.US> Reply-To: martillo@cpoint.UUCP (Joachim Carlo Santos Martillo) Organization: Clearpoint Research Corp., Hopkinton Mass. Lines: 52 In article <5446@asylum.SF.CA.US> karl@asylum.SF.CA.US (Karl Auerbach) writes: >RFC1124 came out with a discussion of policy issues of interconnected >networks. Interesting and important stuff. >Now, it seems, according to RFC1111, that postscript is OK for RFC's, >(including postscript that was obviously generated by a word or text >processor.) >So: can anyone make reasonable comment on stuff that looks like what >follows? Can anyone do a reasonable machine-based content search? >Can I send it though my automated indexing tools? Can I make a >nice e-mail reply with appropriate selections for context? >No. >I thought we were working on communications, not obfuscation. >I propose that we ban postscript RFCs. > --karl-- The logic of Auerbach's proposal is compelling. As Prime Computer Corporation began self-destructing, part of this self-destructing evinced itself in the lack of communication between different groups within the company. This lack of communication was aided by the increasing non-uniform use of PC word processors on MAC's and IBM clones to produce important documents, memos and PET's instead of the uniform use of scribe+plain text on the 50 Series machines. I should also point out that not all of us have postscript printers or postscript software+supported non-postscript printers RFC's should be available at the archive machines in a plain-text format. Now I know that writing an RFC with a PC word processor is a lot nicer than using an editor on most Unix-based machines or minis. Fortunately, PC word processors like MS-Word and WordPerfect have a plain-text output mode. Utilities like The Software Bridge permit conversion of other word processor files to MS-Word or WordPerfect readable format. It should also be possible (if it has not already been done) to hack up a postscript interpreter to output plaintext to a file. Hence, even for someone using a PC word processor, there is no necessity to submit RFC's in postscript format. There might be some value to maintain a postscript format RFC archive somewhere but we should remember a great RFC will be great in plaintext while a piece of garbage will still be a piece of garbage no matter how beautifully a postscript printer can output it. Joachim Carlo Santos Martillo