Why do we write standards?

[Don Park]

David Hunter wrote:
>The *new* part is somehow managing to combine XHTML documents 
>with other XML documents.  This is the part that could be
>considered standardization in advance of implementation.  So
>if people say <overstatement?>"let's just say the XHTML
>namespace is 'blah', do what you want with the grammar and
>we'll standardize it later [maybe]"</overstatement?>, that
>seems completely backwards to me.  And actually starts us

*sigh*  Here we go again:

But we are not talking about wild wild west where anything goes.
We already have the following specs in various states which places,
imho, sufficient level of constraints in the past and in the future
to guide the lost and to punish the rebels.

HTML 4.0 specification
	http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/
XHTML 1.0
	http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/
XHTML 1.1 - Module-based XHTML
	http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11
Modularization of XHTML
	http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-modularization
Building XHTML Modules
	http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-building
	
<rant>
The primary nemesis of standardization is time.  Time is also the
key ingredient of warfare; anyone engaged in any competitive
process must pay close attention to time.  So it is not surprising
that some of us wants to take seemingly obvious and safe shortcuts.

I am as frustrated as a dirt covered sergent in the middle of a
battlefield who has just been told that he will have to wait for
the bullets because the manufacturers have standards to consider
for field inter-operability.  Nuts!  Get me some standard stones!
</rant>

Best,

Don Park    -   mailto:donpark at docuverse.com
Docuverse   -   http://www.docuverse.com


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