Ian Goddard <goddai01@hotmail.co.uk> writes: > David Harper wrote: > > singhals wrote: > >> Tony Proctor wrote: > >> [snip] > >> > >>> The older ANSI C and ANSI SQL specs are abomininations resulting from a > >>> design-by-committee approach. You can understand the approach taken with > >>> Java whereby it was designed and evolved as a proprietary standard > >>> before > >>> being considered for an international standard. > >> > >> > >> Remind me again please -- what makes _their_ design-by-committee > >> results worse than what _your_ project committee could come up with? > >> > >> If standards in the genealogical software community need to be > >> agreed-upon rather than forced-upon, you're going to get > >> designed-by-committee standards. > >> > >> If it's bad when I (or Bob V) do it, then it's bad when you do it. > >> Ancient adage roughly translated as sauce for the gander. > > > > I guess what Tony is trying to say is that large committees tend to have > > a wide range of conflicting (and often irreconcilable) goals. In the > > context of committees whose remit is to design some kind of standard, > > the result is a standard that is bloated, confusing and often impossible > > to implement effectively. > > > > The best standards seem to come from very small committees, or better > > still, two or three very talented and highly-focussed individuals. Look > > at the standards which underpin the Internet -- IP, TCP, SMTP, HTTP -- > > which each originated as the work of one or two people. Likewise, > > languages such as C and Fortran, which were created by one person and a > > team of half a dozen, respectively. (And John Backus's Fortran team not > > only specified the language, but implemented the world's first > > optimizing compiler on a computer which had less memory than your > > cellphone!) > You can add Pascal as another compact one-man designed standard. compact, etc. != useful in its original, "pure" form