🚀 go-pugleaf

Submitted-by: knighten@intel.com (Robert L. Knighten)

In article <1him24INNfct@ftp.UU.NET> johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) writes:
>I think we need to step back a little and consider what appears to me to
>be the root of all the standardization trouble: standards should codify
>existing practice, or at worse choose from among a few existing versions
>of existing practice, perhaps with some minimal glue where the selected
>versions don't match up perfectly.  Invented standards usually fail.

This is a commonly expressed claim ("standards should codify existing
practice") and it may even be true for software, but I would certainly like to
hear some justification.  Certainly it is not true for a great many other
standards, such as many computer hardware standards, standards for electrical
fixtures and building standards, where specification of a standard often
preceeds the existence of any product.  Indeed there are numerous situations
where this is enforced by law.

Certainly invented standards usually fail, but then most standards (not just
software standards) fail in the sense that they have no significant impact on
commercial practice.  Do invented standards fail more often than those which
codify existing practice?  Indeed how is it to be decided which standards fall
in each category?

--
Robert L. Knighten	             | knighten@ssd.intel.com
Intel Supercomputer Systems Division | 
15201 N.W. Greenbrier Pkwy.	     | (503) 629-4315
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Volume-Number: Volume 29, Number 99