Obeying the rules (was Simple login form with cookies)

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. -- Tony Marston http://www.tonymarston.net http://www.radicore.org "Andrew Ballard" <aballard@gmail.com> wrote in message news:b6023aa40907081232k35fa7b1em4ba543ffbb65e176@mail.gmail.com... > On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Tony > Marston<tony@marston-home.demon.co.uk> wrote: > [snip] >> I don't like this rule, so I choose to disobey it. > > Now that's some scary ideology. > > Andrew