Standards Confusion and Harmonization

Software engineers have long debated the practical benefits of standards. Standards are the collection of their creators' and balloters' best thinking. The quality of their implementation highly impacts both their value and the quality of their product-compliance assessment. A standard is ultimately only as good as its writers and approvers. While harmonization is difficult, it's possible in some cases. However, a quicker alternative to absolute harmonization is blending. While blending might not satisfy hardcore regulations, it can offer an approach to why we use standards to begin with - peace of mind.