nonstandard

adj 1: (linguistics) not conforming to the language usage of a

prestige group within a community; "a nonstandard

dialect is one used by uneducated speakers or socially

disfavored groups"; "the common core of nonstandard

words and phrases in folk speech"- A.R.Dunlap [ant: {standard}]

2: varying from or not adhering to a standard; "nonstandard

windows"; "envelopes of nonstandard sizes"; "nonstandard

lengths of board" [ant: {standard}]

3: not standard; not accepted as a model of excellence; "a

nonstandard text" [ant: {standard}]

standard

Standards are necessary for {interworking},

{portability}, and {reusability}. They may be {de facto

standards} for various communities, or officially recognised

national or international standards.

{Andrew Tanenbaum}, in his Computer Networks book, once said,

"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of

them to choose from", a reference to the fact that competing

standards become a source of confusion, division,

obsolescence, and duplication of effort instead of an

enhancement to the usefulness of products.

Some bodies concerned in one way or another with computing

standards are {IAB} ({RFC} and {STD}), {ISO}, {ANSI}, {DoD},

{ECMA}, {IEEE}, {IETF}, {OSF}, {W3C}.

(1999-07-06)