From: Steve Atkins <steve@blighty.com>
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Subject: Re: Images in the official documentation
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2018 12:12:02 -0800
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> On Feb 25, 2018, at 4:00 AM, J=C3=BCrgen Purtz <juergen@purtz.de> =
wrote:
>=20
> As an addition to my mail from January 2016 concerning graphics =
(https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/568A9148.30303%40purtz.de) I =
propose to use SVG (after switching to XML) - but not an SVG which is =
generated by Inkscape or similar tools. Those editors generate very ugly =
and chatty commands. This form is not easy to read or understand. =
Therefore we shall use nothing but a simple text editor and write every =
line by our self. The process is divided into two parts:
> As a basis we shall develop an SVG library containing a bunch of =
"atomic" symbols of simple graphical elements (rectangle, arrow, ...) up =
to complex elements (magnetic disc, laptop, cloud, UML-elements, ...). =
The SVG routines creating those symbols shall accept parameters for =
position, size, rotation, colour, ... . This library shortens the =
individual SVG files, it ensures a consistent rendering of common =
graphical elements, it is diff-able, and it will reach a stable state - =
some day.
>=20
> The real graphics shall use the elements of the library and add =
individual SVG elements. The rules for this part are the same as above: =
create SVG commands with vi (or similar), store it in git.
> If such an approach works (we must distribute the docs across a wide =
range of different systems, a proof-of-system is necessary) and the =
community accepts my proposal, I would like to work on the library-part =
- starting after finishing my actual project in about 6 weeks from now. =
The attached file contains a very first draft as of Jan. 2016.

Writing SVG by hand maybe doesn't seem the best idea.

I understand the attraction to people who want to store everything as =
diffable text, but images of this sort are unlikely to get updated by =
others, which means they're unlikely to be maintained as the things =
they're intended to document change. It also means that the people best =
suited to generating diagrams are the least likely to do so, and =
vice-versa.

Cheers,
  Steve=