3 ms·

touché! But there is something about the aesthetic of such things, it's why the IETF RFC's (example https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8200.html https://www.rfc

touché! But there is something about the aesthetic of such things, it's why the IETF RFC's (example https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8200.html https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8200.html) are made to look like typewritten pages even decades after typewriters stopped being in common usage. I am surprised that they don't "go all the way" with that look and also apply some simulated coffee stains, dog-ears, and stapling artifacts.

anthk 5y ago
ASCII is read everywhere. Perfect to read standards on any machine since 1970.
- rhn_mk1 5y ago
  Typewriters have hard line breaks. This aesthetic makes RFCs harder to read than necessary on the majority of consumer devices sold since 2012. Form should match the shape of the medium, not fight it.
  - tedunangst 5y ago
    The html version looks pretty good even on my iPhone. The words are small but legible. The text version is zoomed in, but wraps unnaturally, and is hard to read. The pdf is hard to read, too zoomed out. I think they did a pretty good job making a document that can be navigated as people are accustomed to, while adapting to the medium. The aesthetic is not without function.
    - rhn_mk1 5y ago
      Not all RFCs have a HTML version available, sadly.
someweirdperson 5y ago
It's not just the looks. That way it is possible to reference something by line and column.
- crispyambulance 5y ago
  No man, it's a deliberate look which sacrifices readability for some kind of retro-aesthetic whether they admit it or not. It's easy enough to reference things by section numbers. And really, if they cared about being able reference things to the n-th degree, the figures would have been captioned and have their own figure-number instead of just sort-of "in there" like a paragraph (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8200.html#section-4.4 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8200.html#section-4.4).

anthk 5y ago

ASCII is read everywhere. Perfect to read standards on any machine since 1970.

rhn_mk1 5y ago
Typewriters have hard line breaks. This aesthetic makes RFCs harder to read than necessary on the majority of consumer devices sold since 2012. Form should match the shape of the medium, not fight it.
- tedunangst 5y ago
  The html version looks pretty good even on my iPhone. The words are small but legible. The text version is zoomed in, but wraps unnaturally, and is hard to read. The pdf is hard to read, too zoomed out. I think they did a pretty good job making a document that can be navigated as people are accustomed to, while adapting to the medium. The aesthetic is not without function.
  - rhn_mk1 5y ago
    Not all RFCs have a HTML version available, sadly.

someweirdperson 5y ago

It's not just the looks. That way it is possible to reference something by line and column.

crispyambulance 5y ago
No man, it's a deliberate look which sacrifices readability for some kind of retro-aesthetic whether they admit it or not. It's easy enough to reference things by section numbers. And really, if they cared about being able reference things to the n-th degree, the figures would have been captioned and have their own figure-number instead of just sort-of "in there" like a paragraph (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8200.html#section-4.4 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8200.html#section-4.4).