Re: Saving markup formats

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Oliver Scholz <alkibiades@gmx.de> writes:

> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>
>>     This is a very bad thing; a _reliable_ word
>>     processor---as opposed to an unreliable hack---shouldn't make any
>>     changes to the logical structure of a document unless explicitly
>>     ordered to do it.
>>
>> I reject that position (as well as the gratuitous insult tacked onto
>> it)
>
> It was not meant as an insult; by "unreliable hack" I was refering to
> my own first implementation. Of course, I was also referring to a
> general implementation strategy, still "insult" seems a bit strong.
>
> I'll try to refrain from further discussing this issue. I have to
> admit that from memory I can't think of any case where the approach
> you describe would fail with RTF---at least with the help of markup
> text in a buffer. My personal opinions are of no concern here.

I find myself agreeing with you here: documents should preserve
structure.  Word has so-called "style sheets" as a structuring method,
and it means that you can change the layout of a document consistently
by changing the style sheet.  Ignoring the structure of the RTF and
saving something visually equivalent is breaking the document.  While
it does not much harm to the documents of _naive_ Word users, it would
be horrible to load a complex file, change a few words, and have it
saved basically as a seemingly same-looking but unmaintainable mess.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum