>I would agree, except the field of programming seems to have a very large number of pedants.
It's been a few years but at least when I worked as a NASA subcontractor those standards were (IMHO) to both ensure compliance to process and frankly spread around the blame if something failed despite compliance. Since none of us are writing code to fly on the Space Shuttle I'll agree with you most of the time pedantry for the sake of it is a waste of time. Still, if someone wants to be a pedant about writing code for an automated teller machine or a voting machine then I'd say it's time well spent.
It's been a few years but at least when I worked as a NASA subcontractor those standards were (IMHO) to both ensure compliance to process and frankly spread around the blame if something failed despite compliance. Since none of us are writing code to fly on the Space Shuttle I'll agree with you most of the time pedantry for the sake of it is a waste of time. Still, if someone wants to be a pedant about writing code for an automated teller machine or a voting machine then I'd say it's time well spent.