On 6/2/2010 9:12 AM, MH Michael Hammer (5304) wrote:
>
> For shame Dave. Taking one sentence out of context is something I would
> not have expected from you.

After all this time, I am glad to hear that I can still surprise you...

FWIW I took it out of context entirely knowingly.  Frankly, I wasn't interested 
in the particular topic.

As I said, I think that that captures the critical difference in what drives 
the 
two sides of these various-but-really-identical debates.  The particular 
context 
wasn't the point.  The difference in attitudes about /any/ of these topics is 
the point.


> The whole point of having a standard is to avoid the voodoo and
> guessing.

Right.  And a standard that is not adopted or used does not achieve this. 
Worrying very carefully about adoption barriers -- who will adopt it and why -- 
is essential to this, but we have not been succeeding in getting answers to 
hard 
questions here.


> You are absolutely correct that we should anticipate failures. That does
> not mean we should anticipate FAILURE from a reasonably crafted
> standard.

Actually, yes it does.  That is exactly my point.

A side effect of living in Silicon Valley is seeing how often carefully crafted 
startups fail.  Good ideas and a well-designed product are not sufficient to 
guarantee success, absent properly matching the /perceived/ needs of the folks 
who will use it /and/ the folks who will pay for it.


> We cannot protect foolish people from doing foolish things to
> themselves. This is another case of King Canute.....

The benefit of that perspective is acknowledging limitations.  The danger is 
not 
putting in enough effort to make things appropriately usable and/or not putting 
enough effort into crafting a value proposition that is compelling to the 
target 
audience.

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net
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