Microsoft Hatred FAQ

[Mike Schilling]

"John Bokma" <john at castleamber.com> wrote in message 
news:Xns96F38418ADF38castleamber at 130.133.1.4...
> Roedy Green <my_email_is_posted_on_my_website at munged.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 18 Oct 2005 06:57:47 GMT, John Bokma <john at castleamber.com> wrote
>> or quoted :
>>
>>>>>That an HTML standard (ISO/IEC 15445:2000) and an HTML
>>>>>recommendation by w3c (4.01 for example) are two different things,
>>>>>and mixing them up by calling both standards is a bad thing.
>>>>
>>>> Because ... what are the consequences?
>>>
>>>If you mean if you are put in jail for 20 years, and tortured, none.
>>
>> No. ANY consequences.  You have not explained the downside.
>
> ISO HTML and HTML 4.01 differ. If you were asked to write a validating
> parser for the HTML standard, (as in ISO), and you wrote one for HTML 4.01
> (as in recommendation), you made quite a mistake.

There are standards that conflict, and also recommendations that conflict. 
Why is confusing standard A with recommendation P worse than

1.  confusing standard A with  standard B, or
2.  confusing recommendation P with  recommendation Q