[thelist] Re: Why code for standards

[Bev Corwin]

If you are suggesting that these organizations contribute to the digital
divide,  well, there's something I haven't yet considered, but now that you
mention it,  I suppose they could.

To assume that your productivity will be decreased by better organizational
design of standards organizations is a whole other issue entirely.  I
believe the motives for the current designs  should be studied, and
considered that the current designs could use some improvements.  That is,
unless you are saying they are already perfect?

The anger problem,  well... thats beyond the scope of this list discussion,
but interesting all the same.

Bev

----- Original Message -----
From: <Arlen.P.Walker at jci.com>
To: <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 11:51 AM
Subject: Re: [thelist] Re: Why code for standards

> So I guess what you're saying is we should all rip the Ethernet cards out
> of our computers, because that's a standard set by and agreed to among
> corporations. We could go back to dial-up connections, but hey, wait a
> minute, that's *also* a BigCo standard. Got to get rid of the computer,
for
> that matter, because the standards for that are set in other BigCo's
> (Microsoft sets the design standard for intel/AMD-based systems, even the
> vast majority of the ones running Linux, Apple for PowerPC-based). And
> televison and radio is out, because they're standards-based as well.
>
> Standards are now and have always been necessary. And most of the time
> they're set by the ones with deep enough pockets to fund the R&D effort.
> Standards that some folks have been economically excluded from start at
> your walls (you *did* know there were building standards, didn't you) and
> proceed through every niche of your home and office (and garage, for that
> matter). While many of these standards don't cost a lot to meet, they were
> all set by the folks who were big enough to fund the discovery effort.
>
> Why code for standards? Because the web design, and even the web page, for

> that matter, is only the means to the end, not the end in itself. The end
> is communication, whether that commincation involves the exchange of money
> for goods and services, or merely of time for information. And standards
> allow me to focus on the *real* task at hand, communication; instead of
> wasting time and energy on the means I can go right to the end.
>
> Are we there, yet? No. And I'm jealous of every minute I have to spend
> testing this browser quirk or that workaround (can you tell I've just
> discovered for myself the NS/Mozilla bug that drops a scroll bar over the
> top of a background image positioned on the right?) because that's one
> minute that's forever lost to me and I'll never get it back. And it's only
> lost because some fool decided I shouldn't be allowed to make something
> available for everybody, but only for a select group (a group I had no
part
> in selecting, I might add).
>
> And *that's* the heart of my beef with Browser Buffonery: They're getting
> in the way of my doing my job, which is to communicate what I know (or
what
> the people who hire me know) as efficiently and as effectively as I know
> how. Right now that involves wasting a lot of time working around
> everything from bad programming to indifference, even active hostility, to
> standards. All I want the Browser Bozos to do is to get out of my way and
> let me do my job.
>
> <hmmmm, blood pressure down 30 points, now>
>
> Have fun,
> Arlen
> Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
> DNRC 224
>
> Arlen.P.Walker at JCI.Com
> ----------------------------------------------
> In God we trust; all others must provide data.
> ----------------------------------------------
> Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
> If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.
>
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