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Comment by ubersoldat2k7 | Hacker News Reader

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ubersoldat2k7

Why do RFC's have to be so ugly?

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It's just a formating issue. Nothing prevent you to reformat them: http://pretty-rfc.herokuapp.com/RFC2616

This is very cool. Why is the RFC source not available and what does it take to get it?

The home page states:

  Note: most RFCs can't be prettified at the moment, as their
  source files are unavailable to the public and need to be 
  requested from rfc-editor.org. I'm working on this.

I suppose that it's just a matter of time.

Because they originate from a time where plain text was what you had, and the format was created to be consistent and easy to format by hand. I still prefer my specifications to be in plain text so that I can view them easily and quickly.

I still prefer my everything in plaintext....

It would be easy enough to at least format them in HTML, they use such consistent ascii 'typesetting', it could easily be automated.

I mean, they are formatted in HTML now, but as a giant block of monospace text. They could use <hx>s for the headers, let the text flow with browser resize for small screens, heck use bootstrap for good readable web typesetting, etc.

I am not sure why the IETF isn't interested in better web typesetting for em.

At one point someone had a site that did that, I think it was advertised and discussed here on HN, but I forget what it was called, and I think it faded into non-supported obscurity (since it was obviously a labor of love, unpaid).

I really love them. This probably reveals my age...

Nope, I'm <25 and I love them too.

I think this[1] is to blame for it.

[1]: http://tools.ietf.org/tools/rfcmarkup/

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