[Info-vax] IE8 got me too :-( Sorry Jeff.

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <343734ca-c0b3-4938-8d9a-b03bf57aaea9 at x6g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>,
	AEF <spamsink2001 at yahoo.com> writes:
> On Jan 18, 1:42 pm, billg... at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
>> In article <v4adnax7iuzG8cnWnZ2dnUVZ_j2dn... at giganews.com>,
>>         "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilber... at comcast.net> writes:
>>
>>
>>
>> > Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> >> In article <4b53ca5d$0$273$14726... at news.sunsite.dk>,
>> >>        Arne Vajhøj <a... at vajhoej.dk> writes:
>> >>> On 14-01-2010 08:07, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> >>>> In article<4b4e8718$0$282$14726... at news.sunsite.dk>,
>> >>>>        Arne Vajhøj<a... at vajhoej.dk>  writes:
>> >>>>> On 13-01-2010 21:31, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>> >>>>>> In article<4b4e7946$0$279$14726... at news.sunsite.dk>, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?=<a... at vajhoej.dk>   writes:
>> >>>>>>> On 13-01-2010 08:50, AEF wrote:
> [...]
>> >> Most of the standards I have seen are all or nothing.  If you ignore
>> >> parts of the standard then you are just as non-compliant as if you
>> >> used none of it.
>>
>> >> bill
>>
>> > And just what is the payoff for "standards compliance"?  If your system
>> > does what you need and want, how much extra would you pay to make it
>> > "standards compliant".  $0.00?  I thought so!
>>
>> Which was my point, exactly.  Being standard compliant doesn't pay
>> the mortgage.  Reaching customers does.  Considering all the non-
>> standard stuff that DEC has pushed thru the years, it is really
>> funny to see everyone here screaming "Standards are a must!"
>>
>> bill
>>
>> --
>> Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
>> billg... at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
>> University of Scranton   |
>> Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>
> Bill,

God, you people like to go off on absurd tangents.

> Yeah, let's just jettison standards for weights and measures while
> were at it.

Weights and measures are not being changed on an almost daily basis
like things like HTML and programming languages.

> If you can make more money by lying and ripping people off, why not?

What does that have to do with standards?  I can do that with or without
them.  As a mattrer of fact, the existance of standards might even make
it easier.  Just because I claim standards compliance doesn't make it
so and verifying it can be costly and time consuming during which time
I have taken the money and run.

> If you can make more money by breaking the law and getting away with
> it, why not?

What's that got to do with standards?  People do that wevery day, with
or without standards.

> Then there were the music radio turntable speed wars of the 1960s (was
> it 1960s? -- add a big wide circa to that).

Not sure what this is supposed to mean.  I'w 60 years old and the speeds
of turntables have been standard all that time: 16.5 33 45 & 78.  I have
never seen anything else that I can remember and certainly don't have
any records done at other speeds in my collection.

> And the game show fraud episode.

And once again, what's that got to do with standards?

> Nah, we don't need no stinking standards!

Not for everything, no.

> OTOH, Jet Blue's website used to be just a big blue US. I had no idea
> what to do to work it! A friend at work showed me to move your mouse
> pointer across where various cities would be and the city names would
> pop up, at which time you would click. . . . (!) . . . That's why I
> used priceline.com at the time. (Still do, but recently I went to Jet
> Blue and bought some tickets as their website is now much easier to
> work.)

What's that got to do with standards?  Sounds like a supporting argument
for what I said in the first place.  If you don't make your web page work
for everybody then you will loose customers and thus, money.  The answer
to the above problem is not standards, it is KISS.

> Well, I must not be the only one who was flummoxed by this as their
> website is no longer like that.

And precisely what standard did they violate?  or do you believe it is
not possible to create bad web pages as long as you use standards?

> Never saw the point of having to move your mouse pointer over every
> square millimeter of screen to be sure you don't miss anything.

See comments above.

> Also, there's the attempt to introduce differen names for binary and
> decimal prefixes for bytes. There would be megabyte and mebibyte.
> You think I'm kidding! Go to
> http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html

So, what you have is a standards body (NIST) coming up with arbitrary
and problem causing "standards".  Wait, wasn't that what I was complaining
about in the first place????

> Good luck with that one! (Though at some point they will differ enough
> to be a problem.)

And, it is probably a totally unneccessary idea, but then, when your
only product is standards you have to keep coming up with them no
matter what the damage in order to justify your (very high) salaries.   

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>