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

[Alan Feldman]

On Jan 20, 12:25 pm, billg... at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> In article <343734ca-c0b3-4938-8d9a-b03bf57aa... at x6g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>,
>         AEF <spamsink2... 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, well this thread is beating a dead horse. It should either get
more interesting and/or sensible and/or fun, or die a merciful death!

At least I trim quoted material.

> 
> > 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.

OK. Perhaps decadely.

> 
> > 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.

My point was that making money, maximizing the number of customers, is
not the be all and end all. Yeah, it's a bit on the silly side. Never
mind.

> > 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.

I'm not focusing on standards. I'm focusing on what your prime concern
is: maximizing customer exposure. The means don't justify the ends.
Yeah, that's way tangent, but in this response you're focusing on
"standards". I'm also commenting on your other point: "Maximize
customer exposure by not breaking their browsers (poorly worded -- but
you know what I mean).  Never mind. Hey, this entire thread seems to
be somewhat incoherent. You say the obvious. Everyone else is saying
standards are good. Well, standards are good, if everyone goes by
them. This whole thread is on a ferris wheel.

Both sides have some good points.

> 
> > 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.

One radio station would play records just a little faster than the
standard speed to sound a little snappier, thereby gaining more
audience. Then another would up the ante by speeding their turntable
up another notch. And then you get what I believe is called a "race
condition", or arms race of turntable speeds. Laws were passed to stop
this nonsense and stick to the standards. But it would be far more
difficult to do that in this case. 

16.5? Really? I thought it was 16. I've seen 33s, 45s, and even a 78,
but never a 16(.5?). 

> 
> > And the game show fraud episode.
> 
> And once again, what's that got to do with standards?

It has to do with maximizing profit at any cost. Again, a reach. Never
mind. 

I'm not just writing about standards.

> 
> > Nah, we don't need no stinking standards!
> 
> Not for everything, no.

OK, Touche'.

> > 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.

Bill, didn't you see that I started this paragraph with "OTOH"? That
means "on the other hand". And that in turn means the counter
viewpoint. I'm making a different point that agrees with you for this
on the maximizing customer exposure with this example. I guess we'll
just have to disagree to agree.

> 
> > 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?

The standards of common sense, KISS, avoidance of stupid Web design,
and avoidance of stupid geek "isn't that cool, ahuh, ahuh, ahuh for
something that at best is cool at most once and is usually some stupid
Gee Whiz nonsense. It's like an error message someone wrote where I
work. I sometimes get emails with a subject that goes something like
this: "blah blah error, and only you can save me!" Yeah, that's fun
seeing everyday. Cutesy is at best fun only once. Another is form over
function. I prefer things that work without an unreasonable amount of
extra effort. I've got better things to do than scour the entire page
for secret links (like write this response!)

I really don't get why you add the "create bad web pages" question. I
was again making a point in favor of YOUR point of view. Sheesh.
Again: we disagree to agree.

> 
> > 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.

Which comments?

> 
> > 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????

Again, I'm making still yet another point in your favor! Mebibytes?
Please. I think these are the same people telling us there's no such
thing as 12am and 12pm (or they hang out together).

> 
> > 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.  

That is not their only product. They are continually modifying
existing standards to make them better and better. The definition of
the meter has been modified several times to make it more precise and
useful. In fact, it is now based on the distance light travels in a
second, which in turn is based on a certain atomic transition in
Cesium, or something like that. Speaking of time, they produce the
time (in conjunction with the Naval Obs., I believe). And don't forget
the not terribly exciting, yet very important leap seconds! Yeah, I
suppose some of them have nothing better to do than think up goofy
byte-prefixes. At least they [the goofy ones] are not making tape
drives! Wait a minute: maybe they do and have! That would explain a
few things.

> 
> 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>  

AEF (author of "I lost it with the tape drive [now at v1.1(!)])