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   RE: [xml-dev] You call that a standard?

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We use our doubts to smother our hopes and 
so nourish our fears.

It helps to know enough about the technology 
to determine when a standard is useful. Copping 
out to the permanence of change is just that. 
Applying the term without differentiation makes 
it meaningless.  The question is, what would be 
meaningful to you just as I asked Dare.

Conformance testing goes a long way toward making 
that leap from faith to provable fact.  That 
is why test marks are a formal sign in the family 
of trademarks.  It enables one to make IP work 
for an industry instead of against it.

len


From: Hunsberger, Peter [mailto:Peter.Hunsberger@STJUDE.ORG]

I think I'd have to agree with Robin.  A (perhaps non-standard)
dictionary look-up of "standard" yields many meanings two of which seem
relevant:

 - An acknowledged measure of comparison for quantitative or qualitative
value; a criterion

 - Something, such as a practice or a product, that is widely recognized
or employed, especially because of its excellence

I personally don't expect the word standard as applied to specifications
to give it much more weight than using the term specification by itself.
Knowing who authors and/or endorses a spec. is sometimes useful.
However, I don't expect any particular heritage or endorsement for any
particular spec. to give it any special staying power, universality or
commercial viability.




 

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