Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
scriptingNews outline for 10/17/2000
Author: Dave Winer Posted: 10/17/2000; 6:46:51 AM Topic: scriptingNews outline for 10/17/2000 Msg #: 21875 Prev/Next: 21874 / 21876
The new dual-view discussion group is now available on all UserLand-hosted Manila sites. (We're finding and fixing some small bugs before releasing the feature to Frontier customers.)
Today's baseball: Mariners vs Yankees. A must-win game for Seattle. CNN asks "Does anyone outside of Seattle want to see the Mariners in the World Series?" Yes!! Baseball is serious. It's about philosophy. If there's a media circus, you'll get a big mess in NY, people will lose their lives, the infrastructure will crumble. Now you may wish that on NY, but I don't. So I'm rooting for the Mariners all the way.
Yankees are up 9-7 in the 8th.
Fortune: "Once considered gods of the new economy, venture capitalists heartily endorsed some of the most disastrous excesses of the dot-com era. They may not have learned their lesson--but we should."
Jamcracker, an ASP aggregator, raises $100 million; Firedrop raises $90 million. (Still looking for a pointer.)
Gnutella in a Nutshell: "Imagine that I ask you a question, and you know that the answer is no. But instead of just telling me that, you proceed to ask everyone that you know what they think the answer is," Johnson said. "And they ask everyone they know ... and on and on."
Skotos StoryBuilder builds on XML. "StoryBuilders can choose to edit the raw XML files or they can choose to use slightly prettier web-based interfaces – but in either case, [the XML is] always there."
Dick Berry: The iceberg analogy of usage. "The look and feel of an interface is analogous to the syntax of a language. They describe how a user can interact with a system but not what the user can ask the system to do." Right on.
On the Decentralization list, I posted an outline of our plan for distributed content at UserLand. The goal is to provide maximum convenience for people with all levels of expertise and persistence of net connections. Also important is thin-ness of the cloud. It should be possible to quickly implement it in any dynamic environment.
Spicy Noodles: "extensions.postgreSQL is a DLL for connecting from UserLand Frontier to a PostgreSQL server process. The extension is cross-platform, it works with both the Mac OS and Windows version of Frontier."
ESPN: "Already, Hillary Clinton's advisors are debating whether the U.S. Senate candidate should profess herself a lifelong Mets fan or a lifelong Yankees fan." Pfui!
Salon: "Yo, if it ain't New Yawk pizza, it ain't pizza!"
Today's song: Meet the Mets.
Wetlog: "I decided to clean my ears." ROTFL!
I think I'll clean my ears tonight.
In defense of Mac OS X
NY Times: "But Mr. Ozzie's company, concentrating on the Windows world, has deferred work on an Apple version. Mr. Ozzie said there was no point developing programs for the older Mac System 9 and that he judged Mac OS X as not yet mature enough to start work on."
I sent an email to Ray. "Develop for the Mac APIs. Mac OS X runs Mac apps. Further, if you develop for the 'Carbon' libraries, your software will run native on OS X."
Other comments. Markoff got it right, the user interface of Mac OS X is a problem for Apple. It's different from the UI of the Mac. I don't expect Mac OS X to be an end-user product for at least two-three years. It would be a mistake for Apple to pre-install Mac OS X as the default OS on new Macs until it's much smoother, imho.
On the other hand, Mac OS X makes a very good server OS. This makes total sense. It's BSD at its core. That's why my company's strategy is to ship a server-based app for Mac OS X, we think the market is perfect for this, right now, not in two-three years.
An easy powerful server, with user friendliness that Mac users like. Lots of strange concepts here for Unix folk. Yup some geeks like color and appreciate pretty interfaces. And people can access the apps over the Web.
(Our app is "Manila", btw.)
Another quote: "A visit to Apple's Mac OS X Web site reveals pointers to only a handful of test programs that take full advantage of the new system. And none of them are from major software companies."
To John, who remembers when Microsoft wasn't a major software company, why do you care whether software comes from a major company? When was the last time a major company created a new exciting application? This benchmark of acceptance is rarely challenged.
Pushback to Apple
The conversation is restarting. This is good!
I got an email from an Apple person asking me to explain why they should care about my software.
To paraphrase, "What have you done for the Mac in the last few years?"
Excellent question. My company has continued to debug and enhance its Mac software, and keep it moving in parallel with our Windows software, without annoying delays between versions. To us, the Mac is a first class platform.
Second, I've been an Apple developer since 1979, twenty-one years, so I think I know something about Apple culture. Apple has generally placed more value on converting developers who don't make software for the Mac. So if you want me to help the Mac, I'm glad to do it, but please fix this bug. It would be nice if we were rewarded for supporting the Mac.
This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:56:54 PM.
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