From: seawasp+@pitt.edu (Ryk E Spoor)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.misc,rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.anime,rec.games.frp,alt.overlords
Subject: SURVEY: Writers (all kinds) and programmers, read!
Date: 8 Apr 92 18:38:51 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh



	This survey is to people who use the net to write/send/edit
documents, particularly between different groups of people. It is
directed primarily at writers, but there are a couple of questions at the
end for programmers.

	*If, after reading this, you do not feel like participating, but
you know someone who WOULD, please forward the questionnaire to them (and
of course forward their reply to me! :)  *

	Background:

	Electronic mail, traditionally, has been essentially ascii format.
More recently there have been things like voicemail added, and the lilkelihood
is that mail between sites will become rapidly more heterogeneous.
	Systems are being worked on which will enable the reciever to display
or at least understand the nature of virtually any kind of message sent
(an example is MIME). These systems would embed descriptors into the messages
which would then be read by the reciever and allow that recieving system to
access subprograms to display the message properly.

	However, I have personally encountered another problem; perhaps one
which could be considered the inverse of the one which MIME solves, and
which could be solved in a different fashion.

	The problem appears when one is sent a file, or is sending a file,
which is not in a format which the reciever is empowered to utilize. The
specific situation I have encountered is when two people (coauthors or
and author and editor, for example) are using different word processor
or typesetting programs. WordPerfect files are useless if the only 
word processor you have is WordWriter, for example. There are many other
similar situations.

	Therefore, I propose a system wherein it would be possible for the
reciever or transmitter to CONVERT formats. In the MIME system, there are
no changes made to the sent document, other than adding a sort of identifier.
If you don't have the program to interpret the file in its sent format,
you are stuck. The system I propose would allow the file to be translated
into a format that DOES exist at the recieving end.

	Some such programs have been written (to translate between various
word processors, for example). I believe it would be possible to make such
translation programs nearly universally available on large systems, thereby
allowing collaboration between groups without the need for each person to
standardize their programs. This is particularly important when some
of the participants may not be able to afford the price of standardization.
As an extreme example, I have a computer at home which is not easily compatible
with any others and cannot afford another; I do all my writing on it, but
to send the results to others on the net requires that I convert the material
into ASCII if I wish to retain readability.

	Therefore, I'd appreciate it if those reading this would answer 
the following questions (if you do almost NO writing of documents but
are a programmer, please skip to Programmer Questions):

   WRITER QUESTIONS (all kinds of writers):

	1) Would you be interested in such a system, assuming it was reliable
and covered the formats YOU used (say, you often use Word Perfect and your
opposite number used MacWrite, would you like to use such a system if it
would allow automatic conversion of your docs to MacWrite and his to WP?)
	   A. Yes, very interested
	   B. Yes, fairly interested
	   C. Doesn't matter one way or the other
	   D. No, not very interested
	   E. Totally non-interested; waste of space

	2) What Word processors/editors/typesetting systems would you,
personally, want such a system to handle?
	   (Please list in order of preference, if any)

	3) How often do you think you would use such a system, with the same
assumptions as in 1)?
	   A. Very often (once or more per day)
	   B. Fairly often (once every 2-3 days)
	   C. Once in a while (once every week to two weeks)
	   D. Not very often (once every month or two)
	   E. Virtually never

	4) Assuming you WOULD use this kind of system, what kind of documents
do you think you would convert using this system?
	   (Professional papers, stories, articles, etc)

	5) Have you ever encountered a situation wherein the problem this
system is meant to address did in fact appear? 
		5b) If yes, describe the situation.

	6) Are you aware of any similar systems in existence?
		6b) If yes, describe these systems or give a reference.


   PROGRAMMER QUESTIONS (if you don't program, you're done!):

	1) Have you ever written, or participated in writing, a conversion
program for a word processor or similar system?
		1b) If yes, please describe briefly (which programs it would
convert between, how long it took to write, how reliable it was, and
if there were any specific problems that stood out in your mind)

	2) Whether you have or have not, how long would you estimate it would
take to write (fully -- tested and debugged) a module program for converting
one format to another (say, WordPerfect and MacWrite or something similar)?

	3) Would it take longer, in your opinion, to write many separate
conversion modules, or to write one comprehensive program which simply
accessed equivalency tables?

	4) Would you be interested in helping design a system as proposed
in the text?

	5) Are you aware of any similar systems? 
		5b) if yes, describe or give a reference.


			thank you very much for your time.

					Ryk E. Spoor
				        SEAWASP@vm2.cis.pitt.edu
					seawasp@unixd1.cis.pitt.edu