Does your statement mean that if there is an English standard
for measurement (say, inches) and a Metric standard for measurement
(say, centimeters), then there can be no standard for measurement?

I can simply choose to use one or the other.

====================================
Richard Conn, Principal Investigator
Reuse Tapestry


-----Original Message-----
From: Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95)
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Geoff Bull
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 9:02 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Standards


Richard Conn wrote:
> Just in case you missed it, this is the text of what Mike said:
>
> My Prentice-Hall Dictionary of Computing says (1998, p.627):
>
> "STANDARDS.
>
> Clearly defined and agreed-upon conventions for programming
> intefaces. Standards may be (bullets mine)
>
> - proprietary (used only within the environment provided by a single
>   computer vendor),
>
> - public (widely used across a variety of vendor equipment), or
>
> - formal (developed by a standards organization such as ANSI or ISO)."
>

Given that a formal standard exists for C++ it would seem strange
to refer to a a proprietary implementation as Microsoft's standard
for C++ (Would you say Gnat is the ACT standard for Ada?).
If there are two "standards" then clearly there is no standard.