Re: Suggestion for Sections in I-Ds(and RFC) containing MIb modules

["David T. Perkins" <dperkins@dsperkins.com>]

HI,

While the actual location of RFC 2119 language is not at all
important, and the exact details of other "required" items
are not so important, spending time on determining this
and other things isn't worth the time of reviewers. There
is a simple little script that checks to make sure that
some boilerplate text is unmodified. I'm thankful that such
a script exists, since it is better done with a script
than a human.

The observation that I was making is that there are many
little I-D (and RFC) rules that a reviewer is suppose
to check. This is both a burden on the document writer
and the reviwer. I just wish that for both writers and
reviewers that this was "just taken care of".

The other observation was that when there is "creativity"
that is allowed in these boiler plate parts, as a reader
of multiple documents (especially a collection from the
same WG that is produced at the same time), you notice the
differences and wonder if there was a reason
for the differences. This is wasted time. I don't like
people to waste my time, and I bet others don't like
wasted time either. 

So my primary suggestion is that a MIB document skeleton
be created so that document authors (and reviewers)
don't need to spend any time on this aspect of documents.
I believe that the suggested organization of sections
found in the MIB reviewers guidelines doesn't go far enough.

To create such a skeleton, someone needs to decide what
is in it, and how it is organized. I don't care about
things like where the RFC 2119 language is included.
There are many other things I passionately care about,
such as I included in recent email to this list about
what should be included
in the DESCRIPTION clauses for tables and rows.

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, Juergen Schoenwaelder wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 25, 2005 at 04:10:15PM -0700, David T. Perkins wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > (Consistency is a VERY GOOD THING, since it helps to ensure that
> > documents are complete, and that documents are easy to read.)
> 
> I tend to disagree that this "problem" is worth fixing. RFC layout
> rules have changed in the past and there is no reason to believe they
> will not change in the future. From the experience of the documents I
> have edited or read, I don't recall that I ever spend much time due to
> the location of say RFC 2119 language.
> 
> I am, however, a strong believer of running code. So if someone
> manages to hack xml2rfc such that it spits out MIB specific
> boilerplate when you set a MIB directive, this would be a real
> contribution and as a side-effect solve the "problem".
> 
> /js

Regards,
/david t. perkins