Great JOB

Hello:
  First read about the Internet ca. 1980.  Dismissed it; was a systems 
programmer at a Data Center with a 2000 terminal network and managed a 30 
terminal Time Sharing System.
Have been reading RFC's to erase the ignorance accumulated over 20 years. 
RFC's are as informative as IBM manuals. Their major drawback being they 
are written for a broad range of situations and usages. The IBM manuals 
were more narrow in focus so were more easily understood.

Have read over 30 RFC's in the last six months. Then I encountered the W3C 
HTML 4.01 document. Great Job! This should become a touchstone for RFC's. 
Prolific, meaningful examples, syntax structure layouts (Element & 
Attributes in a shaded box), editorial interpretation (standard 
specifications not being followed in the real world so here is what is 
going to happen in response). links to The Glossary of Terms and Links to 
the referenced Document and/or Organization, Active Links in the Short and 
Detailed Table of Contents: all lessen the drudge of  research.  After my 
first month of reading RFC's. I choose to suffered ignorance rather than 
scrolling or switching to do "out of document" research.

While the editorial comments in RFC's are usually constricted in scope (as 
well they probably should be given the larger scope of influence and the 
usually more narrow limits of an individuals breath of experience and 
knowledge) the remaining improvement to technical documents SHOULD be 
implemented within the IEFT world. I would proffer the HTML 4.01 document 
as a paragon fitting for the Federally funded  technical education efforts 
associated with Internet 2.

If all the IEFT documents were like W3C's HTML 4.01, I wouldn't still be 
out of work.

Great Job.
john gerent

Received on Saturday, 3 February 2001 23:09:27 UTC