On 23/06/2007, at 1:49 AM, Landon Blake wrote:
I've written a blog post on the OpenJUMP blog about some of the problems with software standards.
It's the same family of problems as open source sucking (because nobody finishes stuff), conferences sucking (because thinking doesn't happen there), and articles in magazines and weblogs sucking (because the authors are journalists). Nobody knows which of those standards will be accepted, which will be dropped, or the effects of those standards. Rather than having higgle-piggledy code, the idea of standards is to make them at least marginally documented for other people.
In practice, the number of attempts at establishing standards is idiotic because it would be a great idea to have an actual working product before attempting to extract the features worthy of preservation in a standard. Also in practice, the number of articles written by journalists is idiotic because we need to read from the people who really know their stuff, not just those writing to have X number of words per Y number of weeks.
Unfortunately, in taking a shot at the people developing standards, you're also highlighting your foot as a target. I would have to ask why you write articles in areas where you've only spent a couple of weeks, such as software licensing. On the other hand, the other option is silence - which is less desirable... and also the other option is not to have software standards - which is also less desirable.
In conclusion, I think we all muddle along up shit creek, scooping poo with our bare hands until we figure out that it's fertiliser for something... The whole human race is a monumentally inefficient organisation, so why take pot shots at those trying to do something? There's a much larger collective of morons that just stare at a TV while polishing the arse-crack in the cushion.
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