Re: RFC's In HTML Format

Walt Houser (houser@cpcug.org)
Thu, 25 May 95 09:20:47 EDT

At 03:04 AM 5/24/95 PDT, Larry Masinter wrote:
>I think you missed my point about embedded graphics. People don't put
>in embedded images in text/plain format documents except as ascii art.
>They'll want to do so in HTML documents, because it is widespread
>practice to include embedded images, but you'll need to establish a
>convention for making this work in the internet-draft scenario, where
>the directories are replicated and it is currently assumed that
>documents are self-contained in a single file.

How about a simple naming convention of rfcnnnnx.yyy where
nnnn is the rfc number
x is the sequence of the object
yyy is the mime type extension for the object

As a PC user - and prisoner of MS DOS :-( - I prefer file names that are
uniquely specified in the 8.3 format.

>As for links to normative standards, there's a big difference between
>a hypertext link and a traditional document reference, and in any
>case, links in HTML only work to file locations, not to semantic
>names.

Let me explain my concern. I believe it would be quite valuable to hotlink
from one rfc to another. Segregating all the links down in the references
section seems to be a disservice to the reader. However, I don't want
non-normative links in the rfc text; it's bad form to turn documents like
interent drafts into rfcs by putting references to IDs in the rfc text.
Perhaps these links could be put into the reference section (though I'm
hesitant about them appearing there too.) Your thoughts?

Walter Houser 202-786-9572
houser@cpcug.org 301-427-3792
Have the Courage to Be Imperfect - R. Driekurs