Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

scriptingNews outline for 9/2/2000

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:9/2/2000; 9:10:05 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 9/2/2000
Msg #:20740
Prev/Next:20739 / 20741

DaveNet: What to do about RSS? OK, it's done now. I'm sure there are imperfections. I just speak for myself, I am not a lawyer, your mileage may vary, in my humble opinion, and all other disclaimers in popular use on the Internet.

So now that Andre has left us to return to school we have an opening to fill on the UserLand development team. The ideal candidate would be someone with lots of C experience at a systems level, someone who has worked on an operating system or Web server or scripting environment, since Frontier is basically all three of these things. We generally only hire people with experience in Frontier at a user level, that way we avoid bone-headed things that screw the users. The ideal candidate is Andre Radke, but well, that ain't happening. If you feel you could fill his shoes, send me an email, preferably with a link to a resume. One more thing, this time we'd like someone local, or at least on the same continent. ";->"

Chuck Shotton: "Is there any real reason why application domain-specific programs have to wade into the morass of name spaces and overwrought specifications when something elegant and simple would suffice? RSS 0.91 does have a few shortcomings, but adding a few additional XML elements and associated semantics seems a lot simpler than starting essentially from scratch."

I went for a visit to the mail list where all the "RSS 1.0" stuff is happening, and found it pretty quiet. I read a post by Dan Libby, the engineer at Netscape who worked on RSS while we were doing the dance with Netscape in 1999. While he supports the RDF approach, he also is clear that without tools it can't work. I totally agree. That's why I think the tools come first, I've even said that here on Scripting News. Ironically, for the RDF proponents, UserLand is probably the only developer that actually has the tools.

5/7/97: Programmers. "My pitch to programmers, which is far more revolutionary than any programming language or operating system can be, is to look for understanding where you find it, work with people you want to work with, and don't waste time with people who won't listen and aren't grounded in the truth."

William Crim: "Think, 'late night', 'awake for 28 hours', '2 Vivarin', and 'empty stomach' and you will have a pretty good idea of my state of mind at the time I wrote my previous piece." Bravo! That's what I love about the culture that's developing here. The barking-farting-chihuahua thing. Yeah, sometimes I write emails when I'm really tired or nervous. That's why I sometimes lose popularity contests. Onward!

6/11/97: Style and Technology. "Content is such an awful word! What do I do? Hmmm. Is it content? That's like saying a great sunset is 'light'. Sure, oh yes, that's what it is. But it misses the point. It misses the movement, the inspiration, the soul-gathering and unification that comes from knowing that 80 million people are watching the same sunset, each in their own way all at the same moment in time, each from their own point of view."

Rob Levin: "Had an interesting evening at the Dave Winer lecture. It appears that his views have been changing over the past few months, and I guess I expect further change." No doubt.

Industry Standard: No weblogs for Olympic atheletes. "Rule 59 states that an Olympic athlete is not permitted to record his thoughts of his Olympic experience and have it posted on the Internet. Doing so would be tantamount to an athlete acting as a journalist, the IOC has determined. And that is grounds for being thrown out of the Games."

What's going on here?

To Radio UserLand folk, a couple of big features are shipping soon. Brent and Jake have been busy. As you probably know, I've been busy with RSS stuff. With any luck I should be back at work on RU stuff in a couple of days.

Oooops, now Jake is leaking. It's not exactly rocket science, in Y2K, that's why it's soooo easy.

Brent's been fixing Frontier bugs.

And we expect some interesting bug reports from Radio UserLand/Win users. Especially from Mike Donnelan. ";->"

Happy 2nd Birthday to Hack The Planet.

Steve Gillmor is my editor at XML Magazine. Here's his one sentence review of yesterday's DaveNet piece. As a writer I like support, esp when it's so concise.

I got a lot of pushback on a postscript in yesterday's piece where I suggested flat monthly fees for music distributed to artists based on use. There are a bunch of other ideas floating around including the Street Performer Protocol.

4/2/98: What would Shakespeare Think? This piece explains why the complex form of XML isn't going to make it with Joe and Jane Webmaster. Interesting that the piece is still on the money two years later.

4/8/98: XML Becomes Invisible. "The benefit of XML will be compatibility. It won't be in your face, except perhaps in a smile, because two pieces of software just worked together and it surprised you in a pleasant way."

Searching on Google, I found this post on the UserLand DG from July 1999. Look at the responses, and who they're from.

9/3/99: A Bright Future for Syndication. "Instead of being a flow concentrator, we propose to be flow distributors, with value flowing in the opposite direction, from the source of the content to the source of the click."

Leigh Dodds summarized the discussion in early July 2000 on the Syndication mail list.

I'm searching in vain for the name of the Netscape person who managed the RSS develpment team in 1999. His name is Werner Eckhert, at least that's what's in my brain. If you know the correct spelling of his name, or even better his current email address, please send it to me.



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