0927: "Standards"

[Maxpm]

Title-text: "Fortunately, the charging one has been solved now that we've all standardized to mini-USB. Or is it micro-USB? Shit."

Yeah, this comes up a lot in programming. It's even more annoying when your teacher preaches his style as if it's the one, only, holy way to write code.

[Jucken]

Standards are so good that everyone wants to have his own standards.

[Turing Machine]

Often, standards are not meant to capture the market - they are meant to capture a niche. E.g., Google+. It takes facebook's gentrification of the social networking demographics a step further. And that's good! It wouldn't have the same appeal if it were widespread.

[Primis]

The industry has finally agreed on a standard interface for Drivers on computers, its called UDI (Universal Driver Interface) Its elegant, simple, beautiful, and open. Many of my friends who program kernels have support for it. However Microsoft refuses to use it, so no major hardware developers are using it... GNU/Linux is currently porting some important generics though.

[Turing Machine]

The industry has finally agreed on a standard interface for Drivers on computers, its called UDI (Universal Driver Interface) Its elegant, simple, beautiful, and open. Many of my friends who program kernels have support for it. However Microsoft refuses to use it, so no major hardware developers are using it... GNU/Linux is currently porting some important generics though.

In what sense has the "industry" agreed if Microsoft hasn't?

[Taymon]

"The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from."
—Grace Murray Hopper (attributed)

[Draco18s]

Hell, not even chargers are universal. Almost no cellphones use USB for charging (or much of anything else).

And even in the realm of USB, there's FIVE different connecting doodads.

Standard, "printer" (the square ones), Mini A, Mini B, and Micro.

[scotty2haughty]

Socks.

I finish my laundry and have 5 different types of socks, none of which match.

Standard socks would be nice. The only problem is I can't go out and buy a bunch of socks to make my standard because then I will end up with 6 different types of socks...

[Rakshasa]

In what sense has the "industry" agreed if Microsoft hasn't?

You'd be surprised to the degree Microsoft is irrelevant when it comes to industry standards.

[EvanED]

The industry has finally agreed on a standard interface for Drivers on computers, its called UDI (Universal Driver Interface) Its elegant, simple, beautiful, and open. Many of my friends who program kernels have support for it. However Microsoft refuses to use it, so no major hardware developers are using it... GNU/Linux is currently porting some important generics though.

In what sense has the "industry" agreed if Microsoft hasn't?

More to the point: what sense has the industry agreed if "no major hardware developers are using it"?

Hell, not even chargers are universal. Almost no cellphones use USB for charging (or much of anything else).

Hmm, it's entirely possible that my sample is biased, but in my experience this isn't true of relatively recent phones. Of the people I know with smart phones, admittedly a small sample, they all use USB micro except for the iPhone. My previous phone (a Razr) also charged via USB.

And even in the realm of USB, there's FIVE different connecting doodads.

Standard, "printer" (the square ones), Mini A, Mini B, and Micro.

I can sorta see standard, printer, and whichever of the minis is more common. But I curse whoever said "hey, mini isn't good enough, let's add a micro." There should be a special level of hell for people like that. (The preference for mini is because it was around first.)

[Coffee]

"This ball isn't as good as the one they had last year."
"What did they have last year?"
"Standards."

[Uninfinity]

In what sense has the "industry" agreed if Microsoft hasn't?

You'd be surprised to the degree Microsoft is irrelevant when it comes to industry standards.

ie, IE.

[jpk]

In what sense has the "industry" agreed if Microsoft hasn't?

You'd be surprised to the degree Microsoft is irrelevant when it comes to industry standards.

ie, IE.

What's up, .doc?

[Draco18s]

And even in the realm of USB, there's FIVE different connecting doodads.

Standard, "printer" (the square ones), Mini A, Mini B, and Micro.

I can sorta see standard, printer, and whichever of the minis is more common. But I curse whoever said "hey, mini isn't good enough, let's add a micro." There should be a special level of hell for people like that. (The preference for mini is because it was around first.)

Personally, I don't get the difference between USB Micro A and USB Micro B. They've got different shapes (my sister had to charge something up about a week ago that used Mini A and all we had were Mini B cables.

[phlip]

Personally, I don't get the difference between USB Micro A and USB Micro B. They've got different shapes (my sister had to charge something up about a week ago that used Mini A and all we had were Mini B cables.

Are you sure? The A connectors are specifically for the "host" side of the connection, while the B connectors are for the "device" side. If something's drawing power from the cable, it's going to either be a B connector of some sort, or it's going to be breaking the standard.

Wikipedia has pictures... the Mini-B is the most common standard B-side connector that I've seen (though quite a few things have completely proprietary connectors... I'm looking at you, iPhone).

[Farabor]

"This ball isn't as good as the one they had last year."
"What did they have last year?"
"Standards."

Ahh, you magnificant bastich.....now I miss Firefly again!

[myoilu]

"This ball isn't as good as the one they had last year."
"What did they have last year?"
"Standards."

Ahh, you magnificant bastich.....now I miss Firefly again!

just got the disc set as a gift recently and Gee Willikers ITS SOOO GOOD!!!!!AHHHHHHH

btw suprised no one noticed yet... the forum link's back.

[squareroot]

btw suprised no one noticed yet... the forum link's back.

Came here to comment on that.
Nothing at the top of the page..
Nothing in the blag..
What was *up*?

More on topic, this is the kind of comic where I laugh for a couple seconds, then think of all times this kind of thing has annoyed me, the continue to steam for the next 30 minutes against all the standard breakers (who are often sadly failingly trying to create standards, tsk tsk)

[ryukafalz]

As far as IM goes... to my knowledge XMPP is the only open standard IM protocol that's still widely used today. The rest are walled gardens.

Not counting things like IRC though, I know that's still used but it's not quite the same.

[dbentley]

This seems very similar to http://neugierig.org/content/unix/ to me. Anyone else think that?

[hintss]

aren't there like 6 different kinds of mini or micro usb plugs? something about companies always adding sound output and stuff

and about open im, theres always jabberEDIT: apparently jabber is xmpp

[Khorbin]

Socks.

I finish my laundry and have 5 different types of socks, none of which match.

Standard socks would be nice. The only problem is I can't go out and buy a bunch of socks to make my standard because then I will end up with 6 different types of socks...

I recently threw away all of my old types of socks I'd built up over the last 15 years or so, regardless of their state of wear and tear, and replaced them all with a single, standard brand. Best. Decision. Of. My. Life.

I still had to buy white socks and black socks, and short white and long white, for example, but I can visually identify that two socks go together now, which is amazing. AND if I pick three random socks from my white pile, for example, by the pigeonhole principle I have at least one matching pair. Plus I get to think about the pigeonhole principle every time I do that. Win-win-win.

[raulfepa]

At least European Union made a good step with standards. All new cellphones in the EU must use micro-usb for charging (only micro)

[Sizik]

And even in the realm of USB, there's FIVE different connecting doodads.

Standard, "printer" (the square ones), Mini A, Mini B, and Micro.

I can sorta see standard, printer, and whichever of the minis is more common. But I curse whoever said "hey, mini isn't good enough, let's add a micro." There should be a special level of hell for people like that. (The preference for mini is because it was around first.)

Standard and printer, USB types A and B respectively, are meant for different uses. Type A connections are for host devices, while type B is for peripherals, which is why they're most often seen with printers. Mini A and B are smaller versions meant for smaller devices, and Micro is meant to be more durable than Mini.

The industry has finally agreed on a standard interface for Drivers on computers, its called UDI (Universal Driver Interface) Its elegant, simple, beautiful, and open. Many of my friends who program kernels have support for it. However Microsoft refuses to use it, so no major hardware developers are using it... GNU/Linux is currently porting some important generics though.

Do you mean Uniform Driver Interface? Because

The Uniform Driver Interface (UDI) is a defunct project developed by several companies to define a portable interface for device drivers.

[eidako]

How else would the electronics companies (and by extension, Walmart --> United States economy --> world economy) turn a profit if we didn't have to buy $20 cables (manufactured at $0.10) for every new device we acquired?

[Brian-M]

Socks.

I finish my laundry and have 5 different types of socks, none of which match.

Standard socks would be nice. The only problem is I can't go out and buy a bunch of socks to make my standard because then I will end up with 6 different types of socks...

When you set a universal standard, you discard the existing standards.

The same applies to socks. Next time you need more socks, buy about 10 pairs of identical socks and throw old ones out. That's what I do. No need to ever sort my socks. Never more than one odd sock.

Since I'm wearing them in random order, they get about the same amount of wear, so when they start to wear thin It's time to replace all of them at once. With another 10 pairs of identical socks.

I recently threw away all of my old types of socks I'd built up over the last 15 years or so, regardless of their state of wear and tear, and replaced them all with a single, standard brand. Best. Decision. Of. My. Life.

I still had to buy white socks and black socks, and short white and long white, for example, but I can visually identify that two socks go together now, which is amazing. AND if I pick three random socks from my white pile, for example, by the pigeonhole principle I have at least one matching pair. Plus I get to think about the pigeonhole principle every time I do that. Win-win-win.

I don't have any white socks, but I don't have any white sneakers either.
On the other hand, I do have one pair a different size and color than the others. A very thick and comfy pair I don't usually wear outside. But it'd be pretty hard to get them mixed up with my regular socks.

btw suprised no one noticed yet... the forum link's back.

Holy carp, I didn't even notice. So used to typing it in manually by now that I didn't even stop to check.

[veritascs]

Socks.

I finish my laundry and have 5 different types of socks, none of which match.

Standard socks would be nice. The only problem is I can't go out and buy a bunch of socks to make my standard because then I will end up with 6 different types of socks...

I recently threw away all of my old types of socks I'd built up over the last 15 years or so, regardless of their state of wear and tear, and replaced them all with a single, standard brand. Best. Decision. Of. My. Life.

I still had to buy white socks and black socks, and short white and long white, for example, but I can visually identify that two socks go together now, which is amazing. AND if I pick three random socks from my white pile, for example, by the pigeonhole principle I have at least one matching pair. Plus I get to think about the pigeonhole principle every time I do that. Win-win-win.

I've been thinking of doing this sock technique. And you've just help make my decision, thank you.

[TomRobbins]

The industry has finally agreed on a standard interface for Drivers on computers, its called UDI (Universal Driver Interface) Its elegant, simple, beautiful, and open. Many of my friends who program kernels have support for it. However Microsoft refuses to use it, so no major hardware developers are using it... GNU/Linux is currently porting some important generics though.

Did I just get trolled for the first time in 10 years?

[jramskov]

Hell, not even chargers are universal. Almost no cellphones use USB for charging (or much of anything else).

And even in the realm of USB, there's FIVE different connecting doodads.

Standard, "printer" (the square ones), Mini A, Mini B, and Micro.

Except for Apple, all phones for the EU market today supports USB charging and uses the micro B standard, here is a 2 year old article about it: http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2009/06/10-companies-agree-to-standardized-mobile-phone-charger-in-eu.ars

You'll notice that Apple agreed to use this as well but so far nothing from Apple supports the micro B standard

The chargers themselves should hopefully be standardized soon as well: http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/01/05/eu-standard-phone-charger-coming-this-year/

[Tyrannosaur]

It would be nice to have a social networking standard.

I was going to say hasnt email been standardized? and then I remember m$

oh well.

Although I do remember from history class that, in the beginning, trains (yes, I am talking about US history. I know nothing about the history of trains in other countries) and train tracks were all different gauges, so trains from company A could not ride on tracks from company B == changing trains all the time. It took a complete monopoly of the train industry to standardize the gauge and make cross-country travel much less super-annoying.

[jnareb]

Character encodings largely standarized to UTF-8, with some outliers (Microsoft) using UTC-2 / UTF-16 variant.

[Pudabudigada]

I think it was China was first to legally enforce USB charging on phones. They have a huge electrical waste problem there, and this was an elegant solution that benefited consumers and the environment (if not the mobile phone manufacturers!).

[tjunction]

Micro USB replaced Mini USB as a standard - Mini USB is now obsolete.

(Micro USB is mechanically superior - rated for a greater number of insertion cycles and designed so the contacts that are more likely to wear out are in the (cheap) cable not the (expensive) device).

And yeah, these are now standard on all new smartphones sold in the EU, which basically means all smartphones sold everywhere. I think Apple were going to try and wriggle out by creating a dock-connector to micro-USB dongle converter or something.

[jramskov]

And yeah, these are now standard on all new smartphones sold in the EU, which basically means all smartphones sold everywhere. I think Apple were going to try and wriggle out by creating a dock-connector to micro-USB dongle converter or something.

There would be an awful lot of obsolete iPhone and iPad accessories if Apple decided to drop their current connector.

[torrie]

There would be an awful lot of obsolete iPhone and iPad accessories if Apple decided to drop their current connector.

In the end that will be better, because you don't have to trow away your accessories every time you buy a new phone of another brand.
Nokia has chosen to keep his own Nokia plug, but they added a micro-usb port, so you can use both.

[Aelfyre]

And yeah, these are now standard on all new smartphones sold in the EU, which basically means all smartphones sold everywhere. I think Apple were going to try and wriggle out by creating a dock-connector to micro-USB dongle converter or something.

There would be an awful lot of obsolete iPhone and iPad accessories if Apple decided to drop their current connector.

there are alot of obsolete iphone and ipad accessories every time they release another Iphone or Ipad.. my GF's iPod will no longer charge when hooked to the hard install kit in her car stero due to some sort of "update" they installed like a year back.. it plays but it just eats the battery.

Also? Micro USB FTW.. except of course wireless options like the touchstone.. that thing was just cool

EDIT: Also also? YAY! the buttons back!

[AvatarIII]

thank the gods for the HDMI cable! it's really the only time a standard has truely been set, since it made all other ways of connecting stuff you yor TV obselete simultaneously,

[SpringLoaded12]

The forum link's back

While there's no clear standard, it looks like some connectors are more dominant than others. If the picture in the top right here is labeled correctly, then both my phone and my Kindle use USB Micro-B, and my mp3 player and every digital camera my family has ever owned use USB Mini-B. I like these two, though I think it would be ideal if everything used one or the other.

Socks.

I finish my laundry and have 5 different types of socks, none of which match.

Only 5? Lucky you.

[BrianB]

Hell, not even chargers are universal. Almost no cellphones use USB for charging (or much of anything else).

Dude - You do realize that the iPhone is not the /only/ phone in the world, don't you? Almost all others out there today have a mini or micro USB connector for charging.

[AvatarIII]

Hell, not even chargers are universal. Almost no cellphones use USB for charging (or much of anything else).

Dude - You do realize that the iPhone is not the /only/ phone in the world, don't you? Almost all others out there today have a mini or micro USB connector for charging.

do new sony ericsson's have slightly standard usb chargers instead of these travesies?

i've had 2 sony ericsson phones and both have had something go wrong with their charger connection