standards

[Caryn Rizell <caryn -at- HPPTC95 -dot- ROSE -dot- HP -dot- COM>]

Hi All!

I must put in a few more 2 cents about standards.  When I brought
up this subject a while back, the response was mostly against
having standards, only because of who we write for and specific
company requirements.

But since then, I keep seeing postings to the list that ask
for information on how to do something  (examples:  1) vs 1:,
c-shell vs c shell, what to put on headers and footers, KB vs
kb, etc.)

Am I the only one that thinks that life would be much easier
if we didn't have to spend our time asking others about
what the standards are?  Wouldn't it be nice if there was
a source where one could find this information?

I know that some of you have said that it is impossible to
have one standard because of military vs commercial for example.
And this may be true.  But I can't help thinking that the
reasons for different standards about something are simply
because someone disagreed with someone else and so invented
their own standard (look at all the style books).  I can
agree that academic writing is different than technical writing
which is different from journalistic writing.  But within
these areas, I can't understand why we can't come to
some agreement on such basic stuff as has been discussed
on this list.

For what it's worth!

Caryn Rizell
caryn -at- hpptc95 -dot- rose -dot- hp -dot- com