Chapter 13: Creating Dramatic Visual Effects 247
Will they ever get their act together?
The mayhem never ends: Those in charge of
defining punctuation, diction, and other ele-
ments of computer programming are never con-
tent to have just one way of describing
something. That would be too easy and effi-
cient. No, each new committee insists on putt-
ing its stamp on things — not all that different
from children scratching their names in wet
concrete: JASON WAZ HERE! These commit-
tees of “experts” from Microsoft, other compa-
nies, or academia seem to come up with some
new, incompatible variant diction at every stan-
dards meeting. Nor do they allow these variants
to act as synonyms (each working just fine in all
contexts). No, that would be too logical. It would
prevent bugs and confusion. It would be effi-
cient. Instead, they usually require that each
context have its unique usage, so that you have
to learn lots of extra rules and regulations. You
can imagine how much pleasure this kind of
muddle gives the hearts of little bureaucrats
everywhere. For example, here are four differ-
ent ways that you can describe a graphics file in
a Web page. And they cannot be substituted for
one another — each variation is required in its
special context.
In the