Building a Cathedral

After the WS-CAF meeting in Paris, my mother and I took the train southwest to
Chartres to visit the famous cathedral.
Our guide said at one point that it was remarkable how quickly the main building was completed, especially without measuring standards. On the other hand (or is it foot?), perhaps that would account for how symmetric it all is.
Meaning that the same builder was involved for the whole time, and his foot could be used as the “standard” measure.
Thirty years seems like a long time to build anything. The World Trade Center was built in about four. (Of course it took more than 60 years to complete Chartres and more like 11 to complete WTC, but the structures were usable in 30 and 4, respectively.)
How many building items are of standard size now, compared to the 12th century? Never mind the basic invention of the measuring standard itself, the question is the purpose to which the standard has been put.
Many other industries have undergone standardization. It’s funny to think that the time of day wasn’t standard until about 120 years ago. Even then, it took another 34 years for the standard to be officially adopted by the U.S. government, and today’s time zones ratified.
How many items in daily life today depend upon standard time? Travel schedules, phone calls across countries, meeting appointments, the order of stock transaction requests in the queue…
Usually an economic reason is needed to drive standards to widespread adoption. For Henry Ford and the Model T it was the effect on price of mass production. And the key was not the assembly line, but rather the standardized system of measuring and fastening parts that allowed for a division of labor. Until then, cars were built by hand-fitting parts.
So where are we in software? IT expenses are under tremendous pressure. Companies everywhere need to speed up results, improve success rates, and cut costs.
How many benefits would derive from the widespread adoption of software standards? How many items would use them? How much of daily life would change? Would we be building World Trade Centers in four years instead of cathedrals in 30?
Could we save the time and money we all spend on developing and marketing proprietary products? Would standard software “parts” help us build software systems faster and cheaper? Is Web services going to be the answer, finally, or just another proposal to use one person’s “foot” size?

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