Subject: Standards

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:23:29 +0300

Hi

Very appropriate for XKCD to post this just a few days before an IETF
meeting.

http://www.xkcd.com/927/

(For those who are not familiar with XKCD, don't miss the alt-text on the
picture)

Yoav

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From: "Bert (IETF) Wijnen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:17:06 +0200

I LOVE this one.

Bert

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From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:19:37 +0300

[Helmet on]

Maybe they should first move the 14 competing standards to Historic.

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From: "Worley, Dale R (Dale)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:54:32 -0400

> From: Yoav Nir [[email-masked]]
> 

And yet sometimes a standard will sweep away everything that was
before it.

One remarkably successful case is "ASCII" (containing the 26 letter
neo-Latin alphabet used by (only) the English language, ten digits,
and a couple of dozen punctuation marks), which seems to be contained
within every character code in common use.

Another is the "Internet Protocol", a networking scheme that differed
from its many competitors by not being sponsored by any networking
company.

I really do believe that in 1,000 years, a section of any good "history
of computer technology" book will explain why a certain few letter-forms
are segregated into the first 128 locations in the character code.

Dale

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From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:22:07 -0400

--On Wednesday, July 20, 2011 10:54 -0400 "Worley, Dale R
(Dale)" <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> Very appropriate for XKCD to post this just a few days before
>> an IETF meeting.
>> 
>> http://www.xkcd.com/927/
> 
> And yet sometimes a standard will sweep away everything that
> was before it.

If "sweep away" is something that occurs after many years of
competing standards and a long period of time in which the
outcome was not clear, then sure.   If you believe that either
ASCII or TCP/IP quickly "swept away" its predecessors, you need
to review the actual history.  See below.

> One remarkably successful case is "ASCII" (containing the 26
> letter neo-Latin alphabet used by (only) the English language,
> ten digits, and a couple of dozen punctuation marks), which
> seems to be contained within every character code in common
> use.

Many linguists and orthographers would dispute whether the
letters of ASCII are sufficient to write English as well as your
assertion that there are no other languages that can be written
effectively in that set of characters.  But ASCII, especially if
you mean the encoding typically used today (seven bits right
justified in an eight bit field with a leading zero bit), took a
number of years to win out over several other coded character
sets and encodings.

> Another is the "Internet Protocol", a networking scheme that
> differed from its many competitors by not being sponsored by
> any networking company.

And that appeared to be so much at risk for a while --well
before it was generally established-- that the IETF actually had
an Area dedicated to OSI transition as well as several standards
for how to do it.  
> 
> I really do believe that in 1,000 years, a section of any good
> "history of computer technology" book will explain why a
> certain few letter-forms are segregated into the first 128
> locations in the character code.

I would predict that, if there are three such books, there may
be four different explanations with the largest variations
reflecting whether or not the authors understood 10646 DIS-1 and
what they think of its implications.

    john

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From: "Worley, Dale R (Dale)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:58:33 -0400

> From: John C Klensin [[email-masked]]
> 
> outcome was not clear, then sure.

Yes.  In the sense that over the long run, the number of "standards"
that are commonly implemented becomes smaller.  As opposed to things
like AC/DC adapters, where the number of connectors on the market seems
to increase without bound.

Dale