Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
scriptingNews outline for 4/11/2001
Author: Dave Winer Posted: 4/11/2001; 4:47:51 AM Topic: scriptingNews outline for 4/11/2001 Msg #: 22144 Prev/Next: 22143 / 22145 Looking for the Visicalc or MacWrite-MacPaint of XML-RPC?
In progress: Uses for our XML technology.
Sean Gallagher: "There's something almost comically futile about trying to market XML software."
Mike Donnelan did the XML-RPC man graphic. We have an informal system -- I can run any graphic from Mike's site and link back to him. That's how a graphics-impaired fellow like me gets such excellent graphics. I was so inspired by Mike's graphic that I came up with a song for The Man. It goes like this. "Arf arf! Ahhh choo. I am The XML-RPC Man. And I have a call for you!" He's a super-hero, for sure, but he barks like a dog with a cold. A modern super-hero, warts and all.
Jake's SOAP Journal: "Apparently 6.96799993515015 == 6.968, through some sort of logic I know nothing about."
NY Times: "A new campaign celebrates the demise of Clippy, Microsoft's obnoxious on-screen paper clip." Coool!
I was emailing with Charles Fitzgerald at Microsoft today. I've known Charles for quite a few years, I think of him as Microsoft's PR gunslinger, and he does that job well. One of Charles' frustrations is that he has never been able to get a reporter to run this quote. "You can't spell LARRY ELLISON without L, I, A, and R." Anyway, Charles sent me the pointer to the Times article linked above, and I told him it was a great idea and would be hugely popular. It's not as if everyone doesn't already know that Office is bloated and the paper-clip is not user-friendly, but user-humiliating. Then he pointed out that Gates uses self-deprecating humor effectively in his speeches, and I agreed, referencing the video with Ballmer and Gates in the car nodding and humming to the nerdy tune. Then I thought, wow, when we get interop in SOAP and want to market it to the press, after they've read the Markoff article (which they all did, apparently) we can do a video with Gates and Ballmer trying to stuff me into the trunk of the car, and me refusing to go. (I'm bigger than Gates, not sure about Ballmer.)
I think Charles also came up with the memorable NOISE acronym, which stood for Netscape, Oracle, IBM, Sun and Everyone else.
Thanks for the vote of confidence. I know you guys aren't an easy sell, remembering as I do (and often cite) that Tim O'Reilly beat me in a popularity contest here last summer. I consider that a badge of honor. I like to be appreciated, for sure, I'm just human, but I like it even better that so many people keep coming back even when they don't agree with everything I say or do. That means you have minds and make your own decisions. Those are the kinds of people I like to work with.
Peter Merholz: "Hypertext creators tend to have Extremely Noble intents for their technology." Correct. But don't dismiss TBL or Doug Engelbart so quickly. Both see beyond the limits of current technology. Engelbart gave us a complete roadmap of the development of PC technology way before any of it happened. The Web does augment human intelligence. It can do more. We are building apps that do more for people, as TBL encourages us to do. Dreaming about the future is a good thing, it give us ideas for things we can do today.
A business model for Yahoo?
Ooooh what's that smell?
Dr Dobbs interviews Microsoft's Andrew Layman.
Jon Udell: "For Web developers, supporting the Netscape browser has become a thankless chore."
Eazel published a whitepaper describing Reef. PDF.
MSNBC: "China said Wednesday it would free the detained crew of a US spy plane after receiving a letter from President Bush saying he was 'very sorry' that an American spy plane was forced to land in Chinese territory after a crash that apparently killed one of China’s fighter pilots."
DaveNet was #1 again yesterday, but by not such a wide margin. I like the way it feels to be #1. Look at Radio and XML-RPC climbing the chart. Nice. Gotta get Frontier and Manila up there too.
I bought the issue of Wired with the profile in it, got as far as the table of contents where they call me a "dead software guy" and didn't go any further. Honestly, I'm afraid to read what they think. The "irascible gadfly" thing is still reverberating within me. Dead software guy? Hey I'm still diggin, thank you very much. It's a good technique to get honorable people to shut up, say they're irritating you, in the NY Times, for god's sake, and then say they're dead. Wow. I'll tell you what -- this irascible dead software guy doesn't want to irritate anyone. If people would stop behaving like greedy idiots, I'd be sweetness and light every fucking day. (I'm starting to sound like Dennis Miller or John Dvorak. Go figure.)
Hold on, Marc Canter, my friend, says that the "dead software guy" thing is a quote of me talking about me. Oy. Marc adds "Us multimedia guys were really disappointed with HTML."
Survey: How am I doing?
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