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From: barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Standardization
Message-ID: <3744@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Mar-85 02:21:19 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.3744
Posted: Tue Mar  5 02:21:19 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Mar-85 03:13:01 EST
References: <322@gumby.UUCP> <7025@watdaisy.UUCP>
Reply-To: barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Distribution: net
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 35

In article <7025@watdaisy.UUCP> ndiamond@watdaisy.UUCP (Norman Diamond) writes:
>Another analogy:  In North America, the residential standard for electricity
>is around 120 volts, 60 cycles.  In Europe, it is around 220 or 240 volts,
>50 cycles.  OK, in the enclosing domain, there's no standard.

This is actually a very useful analogy.  To extend it, I can go to Radio
Shack and pick up a device that will allow me to plug my American
appliances into a European outlet; it is called a converter.  This is
applicable to computer languages: if there are two very similar
standards then it is not very much work to implement a converter.  Of
course, if there are too many standards then it becomes difficult to
find the right converter.

The problem of multiple standards is not new.  There are multiple
standards for color television encoding (NTSC in America, others in
Europe), multiple standard natural languages (English, French, German,
Chinese, etc), two standard American videocassette formats (VHS and
Beta).  And in computers there are a number of de facto standard
operating systems (CP/M, MS-DOS, Unix, etc.), networking protocols
(TCP/IP, ISO), byte sizes (8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, 36-bit).

In all these cases, multiple standards are annoying, but they don't
completely destroy the worth of the standards.  Just as you can go to
the video store and have your choice of renting a tape in Beta or VHS
format, and you can go to the computer store and buy Zork for the IBM-PC
or the Commodore whatever, you will probably be able to specify whether
you have ANSI or ISO Pascal when you purchase a Pascal program.  And,
just as I can't swap tapes with my friends who have Beta VCRs, and I
can't talk to people who speak a different natural language, if I have
ISO Pascal then I may have difficulty swapping programs with someone who
has ANSI Pascal.
-- 
    Barry Margolin
    ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics
    UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar