From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [50.116.15.146]) by inbox.vuxu.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A4D1820DD9 for ; Mon, 20 May 2024 21:27:36 +0200 (CEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 22D6C43B51; Tue, 21 May 2024 05:27:32 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail.ultimate.com (mail.ultimate.com [IPv6:2607:fc50:0:15::100]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id CDF4643B50 for ; Tue, 21 May 2024 05:27:25 +1000 (AEST) Received: from ultimate.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mail.ultimate.com (8.17.1/8.17.1) with ESMTPS id 44KJROXe064951 (version=TLSv1.3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Mon, 20 May 2024 15:27:24 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from phil@ultimate.com) Received: (from phil@localhost) by ultimate.com (8.17.1/8.17.1/Submit) id 44KJROeX064950 for tuhs@tuhs.org; Mon, 20 May 2024 15:27:24 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from phil) From: Phil Budne Message-Id: <202405201927.44KJROeX064950@ultimate.com> Date: Mon, 20 May 2024 15:27:24 -0400 To: tuhs@tuhs.org References: <20240518203319.3oAKtOSk@steffen%sdaoden.eu> <26187.39054.137077.761468@dobie-old.ylee.org> In-Reply-To: <26187.39054.137077.761468@dobie-old.ylee.org> User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.4 7/29/08 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID-Hash: TZYK4NYO6AWPJ5Q3AE64JTZNDF7WLSQN X-Message-ID-Hash: TZYK4NYO6AWPJ5Q3AE64JTZNDF7WLSQN X-MailFrom: phil@ultimate.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Documentation (was On Bloat and the Idea of Small Specialized Tools) List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: Yeechang Lee: > My understanding is that an unexpected result of the requirement to > draft all federal laws in Canada in both English and French is > something similar: The discussion process ensuring that a bill's > meaning is identical in both languages helps rid the text of > ambiguities and errors regardless of language. It always seemed to me that ISO standards were written to be equally incomprehensible in all languages, substituting terms like Protocol Data Unit (PDU) for familiar ones like Packet. In the early Internet, where there wasn't ANY money to be made in antisocial conduct, it was easier to justify sentiments like "Rough consensus and working code" and "be liberal in what you accept". Lest ye forget, "industry standards" were once limited to things like magnetic patterns on half-inch tape and the serial transmission of bits, and at the LOWEST of levels. Reading a tape written on another vendor's system wasn't easy when I got started in the early 80's; In addition to ASCII and EBCDIC, there were still systems with vendor-specific 6-bit character sets, never mind punched cards. I remember going on a campus tour in the late 70's where there was an ASCII terminal hooked up to some system that had BASIC (the standard at the time was ANSI "Minimal BASIC"; a full(er) standard took long enough that it was dead on arrival), but instead of "RETURN" required typing CTRL/C (defined in ASCII as End Of Text) to enter a line! In that context, getting ANYTHING working across vendors was a victory, and having one system refuse to speak to another because of some small detail in what one of them considered reasonable (or not) was asking for trouble. The times and stakes today are distinctly different.