Kent M Pitman  <pitman@world.std.com> wrote:
+---------------
| There is a great temptation in standards work to standardize things
| that are not tested, but it's pretty risky.
+---------------

Too true. Unfortunately, the groups which standardize communications
hardware, protocols, & data formats seem to have forgotten this. Ethernet
and HIPPI were about the last to have a working implementation *before*
standardization. In that arena at least, the usual case these days is
design-by-standardization-committee, *then* implementation. (*sigh*)

Some have attributed this trend to a competitive/political principle
whimsically called by your truly "maximum mutual disadvantage". That is,
if there are no working implementations before the standard gets written,
then no one vendor has a head-start advantage over another.

Common Lisp is indeed fortunate to have been hammered out before this
trend became as strong as it is today...


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock, 8L-855		rpw3@sgi.com
Applied Networking		http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
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