Does anyone understand what was meant by "This is because almost every standard (except ISO8601, whatever) is just a file, and you can read it." Initially I thought it was because the PDF of ISO-8601 is not a file commonly distributed with operating system. But that's not unique to ISO8601, you won't find IEEE 1588-2019 or NMEA 0183 v4.11 on your computer either. For ~20$ I think I can buy a PDF of the standard from ISO. Is there something special about ISO8601 that is not contained in the standard?
I believe the IEEE and others also would come under the exceptions to the "almost" - anything you'd have to make a special effort to seek out and purchase.
> Don’t let people bully you into thinking that just because something is complicated, it’s impossible.
> This is because almost every standard (except ISO8601, whatever) is just a file, and you can read it.
In context, (my interpretation is that) "standard" includes things like The Time Zone Information Format [1], the GNU docs about TZ [2], etc. I think the idea is to say "the documents laying out the details of complicated things are still just documents, you can read them if you're interested and don't have to just see them as meant of domain experts. Some of them have barriers to access like the ISO documents, but even excepting those you have direct access to most everything you might want to understand, don't let the idea of standards intimidate you."
> For ~20$ I think I can buy a PDF of the standard from ISO.
You might find most standards for ~20 USD, but ISO8601 direct from iso.org will set you back 173 CHF (~200 USD) for part 1¹, 194 CHF (~220 USD) for part 2². For $20 you get only the latest amendments from them.
Meanwhile the Estonians will gladly sell you their version of part 1 for just under 30 USD.³
