Standards

Standards

1. Standards are an agreed way of doing things

2. Standards make it easier for people to build programs and software using different systems in different countries

3. Advantages

   • Program will be more popular if widely compatible [or useable]
     • compatible - able to exist without problems compatible - useable
   • Easier to work with other people if you work to the same standards

4. 4 different standards...

   • De facto and de jure
     • De jure standards
       • Standards that have been approved by formal authorities
       • example - ASCII
         • ASCII character set
     • De facto standards
       • Standards accepted as being the best standards for their purpose
         • De facto standards which become accepted by an industry are also known as industry standards or professional standards.
       • Standards only become de facto with positive popularity.
         • Positive popularity only occurs when a standards has a proven track record for efficiency and reliability.
       • example - HTML
   • Proprietary and open
     • Proprietary Standards
       • Privately owned
         • Designed, created, maintained, controlled and owned by a organisation or individual
       • example - DOC files
         • DOC files - a de facto standard used for most word-processing software.
       • Products developed around these standards should work well with each other
     • Open standards
       • Used by anyone and are not owned by a commercial organisation or individual
       • Developed by experts collaborating online.
       • example - HTML
         • Hypertext markup language. The language used to write and display web page documents.
       • Easily adapted to anyone's specific needs
       • Free to use
       • Maintained by not-for-profit organisations

5. Common examples of standards

   • MP3
     • File format for audio files
   • HTML
     • Markup language for creating websites
   • Unicode
     • Form of representing text

6. Agreed by the I.T industry