Random Thoughts on Software

There are two types of standards: de facto standards and de jure standards. A de facto standard is one that is based on widespread use and recognition throughout an industry. A de jure standard is created by a body or committee. These two types of standards are not mutually exclusive, and often, the best standards are those that start as de facto standards then become de jure standards. This is because unproven de jure standards are less likely to be successful. For example, parts of the J2EE standard (a de jure standard) were arguably unsuccessful because they were unproven in the industry (e.g. EJB 2.x entity beans) . But the new Java EE 5 standard has learned and applied things that developers learned from real use in the industry.