Standards-are software engineering process standards really necessary?

The need for software engineering process standards-as opposed to product standards-is discussed from two different viewpoints. M.V. Zelkowitz states that process standards are generally written as policy statements on how to conduct certain processes. As such, they give the framework of the underlying model, but not enough guidance to specify details. They are fuzzy and hard to implement, and they make conformance testing extremely difficult. F.J. Buckley responds to several significant issues raised in Zelkowitz's arguments.<
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