On Nov 24, 2004, at 1:25 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Can another example of "standardizing existing practice" since Fortran
> 77's
> time be cited?

That's a hard one.. mostly it is hard to stop with just one.  :-)

But then an awful lot of them are things that people take for granted
because they typically *ARE* the ones that weren't as controversial and
in some cases border on, or even cross over, the "well duh" level.

Long names, underscores in names, mixed case (part of which is
"obvious", but the case-insensitivity bit was and continues to be
controversial), and continuing on to more others (and more complicated
ones, including ones that you might debate as to whether it was
adequately close to existing practices to count) than I care to bother.

I've heard the snickers at some "existing practice" proposals also, but
every time I've heard them, it has not been because of a reluctance to
standardize existing practice, but rather because of opinions that the
existing practice was so horrible that the thought of adopting it
merited snickers.

Note that I am making no statement about how often it happens. If you
want to argue that it often doesn't, I'll be silent on the question. My
comment is 100% about the reasons for it.  I'm also not arguing about
whether any particular reasons or proposals are or are not good ones.
I argue only that I've never seen it argued or hinted that being
existing practice was in itself reason not to do something.

If you prefer to think that it is all due to prejudice and
conspiracies, then I'm sure there is no point in me trying to convince
you otherwise.

--
Richard Maine                |  Good judgment comes from experience;
[log in to unmask]       |  experience comes from bad judgment.
                             |        -- Mark Twain