* John Gardeniers writes to Adam Fitzpatrick, on Friday October 11 1996
   at 01:21:

 JG>     I think the devotion to an arbitrary standard, which is currently
 JG> under review anyway, is taken much too far by some programmers. The
 JG> end result is invariably fatware, which runs very slowly. Windows is a
 JG> very good example.

If I understand you correctly, you're suggesting that because the Windows
programmers followed ANSI/ISO C rigorously, doing some things in a
roundabout way to conform, is the reason that Windows is so bloated?

Windows is probably one of the worlds widest used cases of non conforming
ISO code. :)

BTW, do you ever see MicroSoft following other people's standards? A little
while ago their internet news server was flooded with bounces because they
decided they would change the format of their messages slightly --
obviously without regard to the rest of the software on the internet.
Another time, they submitted an RFC for extensions to the PPP standard;
when this was knocked back, they implemented them anyway.

 JG>     Another thing I find somewhat interesting is the way some
 JG> programmers will argue in favour of standards (whatever they may
 JG> currently be) and then go ahead and write programs which can only be
 JG> compiled by a specific make and model of compiler.

Got any examples? Paul Edwards is one person who is quite clearly NOT into
hypocracy in this case.

Cheers.

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