somewhat into disuse, to be replaced by the observation that
"Standards are great! There are so many of them to choose
from!" Compare {backward combatability}.

:cons: /konz/ or /kons/ [from LISP] 1. /vt./ To add a new
element to a specified list, esp. at the top. "OK, cons picking
a replacement for the console TTY onto the agenda." 2. `cons
up': /vt./ To synthesize from smaller pieces: "to cons up an
example".

In LISP itself, `cons' is the most fundamental operation for
building structures. It takes any two objects and returns a
`dot-pair' or two-branched tree with one object hanging from each
branch. Because the result of a cons is an object, it can be used
to build binary trees of any shape and complexity. Hackers think
of it as a sort of universal constructor, and that is where the
jargon meanings spring from.

:considered harmful: /adj./ Edsger W. Dijkstra's note in the
March 1968 "Communications of the ACM", "Goto Statement
Considered Harmful", fired the first salvo in the structured
programming wars (text at http://www.acm.org/classics).
Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently
harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print an article taking
so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing
decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies have
borne titles of the form "X considered Y". The
structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the
realization that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has
remained as a persistent minor in-joke (the `considered silly'