---
title: Of standards, assholes, and evolution
abstract: Standards imply agreement, which is disagreeable.
categories:
- work
content-tags:
- technology
- web
- fave
---

There is quite a [stink][1] in the air about CSS (and the family of RDF markups, for that matter).  For any given standard, there are those that are convinced that it will save the world, [provide a baseline to enable collaboration][2], [evolve into something useful][3], or just [cause unnecessary angst][4].

   [1]: http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/1345.html
   [2]: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/05/05/why_we_wont_help_you.html
   [3]: http://www.shirky.com/writings/evolve.html
   [4]: http://www.edwardbear.org/blog/archives/000161.html

It's beginning to look like [Gosling was right][5].

   [5]: http://java.sun.com/people/jag/StandardsPhases/
