--On Friday, June 18, 1999, 10:25 AM -0700 Peter William Lount
<peter at smalltalk.org> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> My point is that the "style" rules are actually subjective "guidelines"

How can guidelines be subjective?

> and not "inherent" in the universe like laws of nature. That's why we
> call them styles. You have yours and I have mine. This is as it should be
> for it would be a boring universe if we were all the same.

<sigh/>I certainly don't call things style because they are subjective.
After all, when you call something a style you implicitly admit it to
various standards of evaluation ("good style", "bad style", "better
style"). Now, *certainly* there are modes of evaluation for which the
standard of correctness is subjective, e.g., I, personally, might like a
certain kind of bad style. Indeed, I might like it *because* it's bad.

Of course, this is off topic now :). For the interested, I strongly
recommend Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste" for an account of matters of
taste where there *is*, and properly so, disputatum.

Cheers,
Bijan Parisa.