• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: Is intelligence and design over-rated?
• From: Gavin Thomas Nicol <gtn@r...>
• Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 15:56:22 -0500
• In-reply-to: <9A4FC925410C024792B85198DF1E97E401F3FFD2@u...>
• Organization: Red Bridge Interactive, Inc.
• References: <9A4FC925410C024792B85198DF1E97E401F3FFD2@u...>

> I had previously been struck by the notion that there's little wrong with
> the W3C that lowering the average IQ of the participants by a standard
> deviation or so wouldn't cure ... Maybe I'm just jealous of people smarter
> than I am... but I've always been partial to "ruthless massively parallel
> trial-and-error with a feedback cycle".

Another appropriate article is the "worse is better" article comparing MIT
to Stanford mentalities.

My feeling is that you should standardize the (minimal!!) functionality that 
allows people to do whatever they want , and then later standardize the 
things the actually do. 

The arrogance of many software  engineers is in knowing that they know better 
than users, and therefore decide to constrain the user choices to those that 
"are, of course, the only sensible ones". I've certainly been guilty of that 
in the past... as I'm sure any honest software person has been. 

Standards organizations (indeed, almost any profession/group) are 
subsceptible to the same arrogance.

• References:
  • Is intelligence and design over-rated?
    • From: "Champion, Mike" <Mike.Champion@S...>

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