Major Arcana 11: The Standard

In the traditional Tarot, the 11th¹ trump card is Justice. Isaac Asimov aside, in Computing there is no law: the 11th trump in the digital Tarot is The Standard.

The Internet is less a technology than a set of agreements about technology: how systems will behave with one another, and respond to common messages and circumstances. The same is true of many programming languages - there are many C compilers, but they all agree to interpret the same language, C. C is an agreement, held for the convenience of compiler writers and users.

Standards are arbitrary - no divine voice says that IP addresses should have 32 bits instead of 64 bits, it’s just an agreement some folks made a while back. That said, once made, and built into systems, these agreements can become very, very difficult to change.

What are the basic expectations your users and peer systems have about your behavior? Are they codified? Can they be codified? Are they over-codified? What will you be able to change later, and what will you have to live with forever?

1. Actually, some Tarot systems put Justice as the 8th trump card, which makes those decks a little harder for folks who expect Justice to be the 11th trump. You could ask, is a deck with Justice as the 8th card really Tarot, or something else? Of course, you could ask the same about decks where Justice is the 11th card.