Vic: I wanted to comment on the ongoing dialogue regarding Regulatory Standards, and the silent majority.
As an Engineer, I find that all specifications were written within the frame work of the creators, just like the Constitution of the United States. We are still, in our court system, studying the words, and the intent of the creators of the constitution of the United States, and the debate rages on. As an Engineer, I was taught in College during my 140 hours of credit course work, to extract the meaning and intent of the text book, and of the instructor teaching the course. There in I learned that I can take any text book, and understand what is required, and solve the problem, if I choose to do so. Or I could complain that I did not understand it and fall into the 80% of my starting EE Class that did not graduate. As a human being, while reading EIA-RS232 in 1969 (at Honeywell Aerospace in Florida) for the fist time, I went to sleep at my desk. My thoughts were -- what boring reading, and who would ever want to keep up with such boring stuff. As a design Engineer, I have been designing Telecommunications Terminal Equipment for connection to the PSTN since 1969. During that time I have found that the Regulatory Requirements for each country are written by human beings with different cultural, education, and organizational backgrounds. As an Engineer, whose profession is now keeping up with Regulatory Requirements for TTE world wide, I find it quite interesting digging into a new specification and understanding what is really required for type approval, or for Production Quality Assurance Testing. What does it take to do the job correct! As a consultant, I am paid to do what others find boring, and I find it quite challenging to embrace the cultural, education, and organizational differences that were present when the Regulatory Requirements were drafted, and to fully extract the intent, and ask questions where required. As a human being, I remember that t was once said; "The United Kingdom and the United States are Sister Nations separated only by a common language." As an Engineer, I found this to be true when first reading BS 6305. Today, I can read a British Standard and after a few repeats, fully understand the intent of the document. If I do not understand what is written, I ask questions. I have found BABT to be extremely helpful in resolving my questions, if I ask intelligent questions after having studied the text book, and am open to listening from the instruction. If not, I would fall into the 80% that never finds out the answer, and fails the test. On an Air Plane, I met a School Teacher who claimed that life is like a class room -- only life is in reverse. In life we get the Exam first and the Lesson second. If we do not get (understand) the lesson, then we get to take the exam a second time. And the cycle repeats until we get the lesson (understanding). Best Regards David L. Patton Patton & Associates, Inc. 1600 West Manzanita Drive Prescott, AZ 86303-6121, USA Tel +520.771.2900, Fax +520.771.2990 Internet; [email protected] Web Page: http://www.patton-assoc.com Telecommunications Consulting, Design and Type Approval for Europe, North America, and The Pacific Rim ==================================================== Victor L. Boersma wrote: > > My observations on what engineers like in standards, probably would have been > best addressed to that large silent majority, not part of this Forum. Ciao, > Vic
