Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!ucbvax!brahms!desj From: desj@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (David desJardins) Newsgroups: net.micro.pc Subject: Re: More on WordPerfect and the DIF standard Message-ID: <11355@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Sat, 4-Jan-86 23:15:44 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11355 Posted: Sat Jan 4 23:15:44 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 6-Jan-86 03:09:12 EST References: <491@imsvax.UUCP> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: desj@brahms.UUCP (David desJardins) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 110 In article <491@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: > > In a reply to my article concerning WordPerfect and the Navy DIF standard, >H. Silbiger of Bell Labs gives a (reasonably) accurate account of the >circumstances involved in the development of the DIF, but also provides >several pieces of mis-information which I would like to clear up. > They seem to have been omitted from the following, in that you basically support everything that he said... >>The first thing they agreed on that only functions everyone >>used would be supported. > > This should read "would be supported IN FILE STRUCTURE". This >doesn't mean that you LOSE things such as right-flush tabs, footnotes, >or the WordPerfect paragraph numbers which fall outside of the 45 >functions retained by DIF; it simply means that a reasonable >WordPerfect to DIF conversion routine would transmit these things on a >PAGE-IMAGE basis only, e.g. translate a right-flush tab into the >appropriate number of blank spaces etc. Conversely, it makes no sense >for other standards, such as the ISO,to include paragraph numbers as a >file structure item, when most word processors or even a reasonable >number of word processors don't have them. > Well obviously a tab can be turned into a bunch of spaces if your document standard doesn't include tabs! Are you claiming that by allowing spaces to be included in documents DIF _supports_ right-flush tabs!? >>Next they looked at those functions >>for which evryone used the same control code. Those were accepted. >>Next they all agreed on a code for all other functions for which >>there was no common code. > > This is simply wrong. No two vendors used the same code for >ANYTHING, there being as many file structures for word processors as >there are people WRITING word processors. DIF codes, other then the 13 >older VT100 type codes for things such as bolding and justifying which >the standards committees forced on us, consist of an escape followed by >a left bracket, then a numeric parameter of some sort, then a dollar >sign indicating the end of the parameter, and lastly a character >indicating the nature of the code. A left Margin setting of 11 would be > > Escape[11$@ > >the "@" symbol being the code for left margins. Of the 128 Ascii codes >available, we have used 33; so much for the notion that the DIF is not >extensible for future needs. > I don't suppose there was too much disagreement on things like ^I for tabs and ^J or ^M for end of line; these presumably were retained and the codes you describe were devised for the other functions. You say, "This is simply wrong," then offer no conflicting statement... On a separate point, aren't these control codes awfully redundant? Presumably a major goal of a document standard is compactness; do you really need six characters for the above?? >>The DIF work should thus be seen as a stop-gap measure to >>achieve some limited degree of interchange. It is not >>easily extensible, and cannot support compound documents. > > The DIF is here and available NOW; the standards Mr. Silberman >speaks of exist on paper and are likely to remain so, and there are >several good reasons for believing that the Navy DIF standard will be >the best system of document conversion available in the real world for >some time to come. > I look forward to seeing them... > Actually writing DIF conversion routines which performed acceptably >turned out to be FAR more difficult than anticipated, taking six months >to a year in most cases. There have been several outright failures by >major corporations attempting to write acceptable DIF routines, and the >ones which do work and which the Navy has validated are typically on >revision 150 or 200 at the time of acceptance. People who have actually >been through this process are not likely to want to hear about any >standard much more complicated than DIF. > The whole point of a standard is to make it versatile enough to handle everything; otherwise people who need to do things outside the standard make up their own extensions (or abandon the standard altogether) and pretty soon you have fifty different systems again. I don't see how anyone can consider a document standard which doesn't understand proportional spacing acceptable... I have to confess I don't see why it would be so hard to write a conversion routine; please do let us know why this is so difficult. It seems like a fairly straightforward task to me (which, I suppose, probably just demonstrates my ignorance...). The idea that major corporations could fail completely in writing a DIF conversion routine seems inconceivable... > All attempts to write DIF conversion routines as if they were >simply one-to-one table look-up type programs failed miserably and were >unacceptable to the Navy, as I will shortly document and explain in one >or two future articles. As I have stated previously, SSI's attempt at >including Navy DIF in their little Convert routine falls into this >category and basically doesn't work at all. I.M.S. has a set of real >DIF filters for WordPerfect which we wrote as a means of bidding federal >contracts with PCs. Anyone wanting a copy of these should send a >purchase order and a check for $100 to: > > Integrated MicroComputer Systems > DIF Development Group > 6110 Executive Blvd., > Rockville, Md. 20852 > Suite 750 Well obviously there's more to it that a 1-1 lookup, but that's not saying much... Also, I didn't think the net was for advertising commercial products (but please don't let this stop you from continuing this discussion). -- David desJardins