standards encourage innovation

[Tom Neff]

From: uunet!bfmny0!tneff (Tom Neff)

In article <532 at longway.TIC.COM> Donn Terry <donn at hpfcrn.hp.com> writes:
>>It is not EXISTING standards that exert a chilling effect on programming
>>creativity, but FUTURE ones.
>
>I can see the point.  However, what would you suggest as an alterative?
>Every standard was once or will sometime be a future standard.  Without
>standards we get chaos (as eveyone who has bealt with all the variants of
>UN*X knows).

 1. Don't standardize things the marketplace hasn't tested.

 2. Don't wait a decade after the market DOES test it.

 3. Don't take three years to issue the standard once you start.

When these precepts are ignored, standards become an oppressive force,
a drain on productivity, a laughingstock, or all three.

Volume-Number: Volume 18, Number 48