RE: HTML better for small PDAs

["Christian Huitema" <huitema at exchange.microsoft.com>]

The way I think about it, the current "ascii" rule makes it hard for the
writer, moderately easy for the reader, and very easy for the archivist.
It is hard for the writer now, because we are mostly using wysiwig tools
that don't produce ascii very naturally. OTOH, it is not too hard -- for
example, the extra cost of postprocessing a Microsoft Words formatted
document to an internet-draft format is at most a couple of minutes,
which seems a reasonable investment when you write for the posterity. As
a matter of fact, it does not take longer than the nroff postprocessing
that we used when nroff was the norm.

Ascii text is moderately easy for the reader. Let's face it, the 72
character per line format has its roots in a time of 24x80 character
screens, which itself had its root in the generic 80 columns punch card.
That is fine when a screen is large enough to display a full line of
text, but that is definitely suboptimal on small screens. A marked-up
presentation would allow for better rendition on  small PDA screens, and
would also allow for a better support of those of us who have a poor
eyesight. OTOH, the RFC format is very regular, with fixed size pages,
regular indentation, etc. Many people have already written filters that
convert this format into their preferred mark-up language, which is a
reasonable compromise for viewers.

We should note that the "ease of view" argument is an argument for
mark-up languages, not for fancy page formatting languages such as
Adobe's PDF: if you cannot reformat the page on display, there is no
particular benefit for the owners of small screens or weak eyes. But the
very benefits that make make marked-up presentation tempting also carry
a big risk in a standard world: if the documents you view depend on how
you view them, there is a risk that conficting view generate conficting
interpretation. That risk is well known in international circles, when
for example the translation of various UN resolutions can carry slightly
different meanings in different languages. If we want standards, we want
a simple reference. Printing an ascii text with a fixed font and a fixed
page set-up gives us that.

In my opinion, the hardship imposed on the authors and on the present
readers is more than compensated by the ease of archival of the text
format, the ease of read by future readers, and the adaptation to the
job at hand, publishing standards. Mark-up languages have evolved in
time, from nroff to tex and latex, from wordperfect to office XP, from
sgml to html and xml. Markup languages tend to be highly parametrized,
with various nroff or tex macros, various word templates, various html
extensions and xml dtds. The macros tend to have an even shorter
lifespan that the languages themselves, which make them even poorer
candidates for an archival function. Frankly, the energy spent every
fice years in questioning the ascii format would be better spent in
writing transition tools...

-- Christian Huitema