The
OED supports the notion that a convention is an agreement, implicit or
explicit, among a group. My practice is mine alone, but if all or most of
us do it that way (good or bad), it’s a convention, a “coming
together” in agreement on this one practice. “Best practice”
specifies what we *ought* to do
without regard to whether we do it. A “standard” is what we
have agreed we will in fact do, to some specified level of detail, when we
enter that particular game.
Bruce
B Cox
Manager,
Standards Development Division
USPTO/OCIO/SDMG
571-272-9004
From:
Rick Marshall [mailto:rjm@zenucom.com]
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2008 4:22
AM
To: Fraser Goffin
Cc: xml-dev@lists.xml.org;
Costello, Roger L.
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Convention
versus standard
Best practice - implies quantitative result in a
qualitative direction
Convention - agnostic on both counts and also on any other metric. eg I do something
by convention - so it represents my practice, but possibly no one else's.
Fraser Goffin wrote:
I agree. Perhaps it would be better to use the terms 'COMMON practice'
and 'BEST practice' rather than 'convention' (the association seems
more intuitive as does the distinction) ?
Fraser.
2008/7/21 Liam Quin <liam@w3.org>:
On Sat, Jul 19, 2008 at 01:04:09PM -0400, Costello, Roger L. wrote:
Is a convention the same thing as a best practice?
No, not in general. Things that are "usually done" or that are
done by most people are not necessarily the best way to do
things or even good things to do.
Liam
--
Liam Quin, W3C XML Activity Lead, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/ * http://www.fromoldbooks.org/
_______________________________________________________________________
XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS
to support XML implementation and development. To minimize
spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.
[Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe@lists.xml.org
subscribe: xml-dev-subscribe@lists.xml.org
List archive: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php
_______________________________________________________________________
XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS
to support XML implementation and development. To minimize
spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.
[Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe@lists.xml.org
subscribe: xml-dev-subscribe@lists.xml.org
List archive: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php
