Tony Marston wrote: > There are too many people in this newsgroup with the idea that you MUST > obey the rules, whatever they are, WITHOUT QUESTION. I do not subscribe to > this notion. I have been working in IT (or DP as it was originally called) > for over 30 years, and in that time I have worked with many groups, and each > group has had its own version "the rules" (aka "guidelines" or "standards"). > When moving to a new group the new rules will always be different, and will > sometimes contradict what you had before. Why is this? Why do some groups > say "do A instead of B" while others say "do B instead of A"? Does it make a > difference? > > The problem partially lies in the way in which the rules are created. It > starts with some wise ass saying > (1) Without rules there will be anarchy, so we must have rules. > (2) There are no such things as bad rules. > (3) Do not allow any choices. If there is a choice between A and B then > choose one as the standard. It doesn't matter which one. > (4) Everybody must be the same, nobody is allowed to be different. > (5) The rules must be obeyed without question. > (6) If a rule causes a problem then you must work around it, you cannot > change the rule. > > Item (5) usually exists because the author of the rule cannot justify its > existence. He just flipped a coin and it came down tails instead of heads, > so that's it. Any moron can make rules like this. > > Some people just cannot understand that sometimes a rule was created for a > certain set of circumstances, but if the circumstances change then the rule > needs changing in order to keep up with the times. Because they do not > understand why the rule was created in the first place, they do not see that > it needs changing. They also do not have the intelligence to see how the > rule might be changed to suit the new circumstances. > > I have fought against arbitrary and stupid rules for decades, and I will > keep fighting till the day I die. If you have a problem with that, then so > be it. > > Yea Tony... I'm with you all the way. but... I think we're fighting a losing battle... I recall some confrontations with parking rule enforcers - why can't you park in an area that normally is forbidden but when you park there in a situation where obviously and with common sense you will not be obstructing anyone or anything? You can't win that and then we have gone so far boyond such needless intolerance and stupidity that I can no longer detect our little planet throught all the muddied rules & regulations.... one manifestation of utterly stupid and useless law, rule or whatever is the use of those little stickers on fruits and vegetables... you may know where the little thing comes from but the ways of contamination are so multitudinous that tracing the contamination is virtually impossible... did anyone ever find the person that laced those Tylenol pills so many years ago? ;-) -- Hervé Kempf: "Pour sauver la planète, sortez du capitalisme." ------------------------------------------------------------- Phil Jourdan --- pj@xxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.ptahhotep.com http://www.chiccantine.com/andypantry.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
