Author: Shelley Powers

Categories
Web

Future of the Web

Recovered from the Wayback Machine

When people say something I want to respond to, I respond to it. And other people are, hopefully, responding to me if I say something interesting. When I respond to what others write, it is a compliment. It means that what was said definitely got my interest, regardless of whether I agree with what was said or not. When people respond to me, I take it as a compliment, even when they call me nasty things. (Go ahead! Call me a bitch! I live for this!)

Having carefully said all this, I find I do want to respond to something Dave said on Scripting News. I have to respond — to hold it in will cause me an injury.

I was a developer before the Web was even a twinkle in Berners-Lee’s eyes. I love to program, and have worked — worked mind you — with 18 different programming languages, including C, C++, Java, Perl, Snobol (any of you recognize this one?), Smalltalk, Ada, Pascal, Modula II, FORTRAN, LISP, and so on. And I still love to program, though I spend most of my time designing technology architectures and writing now.

When the web came along, it was love at first byte. I thought that this was great stuff — a universal front end to any application. I was so sold that I focused as much of my professional life on the web as I could, and still pay the bills.

I wrote books and articles on CGI and DHTML and JavaScript and XML and CSS and ASP and a host of other web technologies. Even today I find I am as fascinated by the web as I was waaaaaaaaaay back in the beginning. I’ve never seen that the web is low-tech. If anything, I find myself being stretched more by the web than by traditional programming.

In all this time, I just don’t remember there ever being a battle between C developers (I’m assuming by this Dave meant people who don’t want to use the web as an environment for their applications) and web developers. Not all applications fit the web, and not all companies have chosen the web for their environment — but that’s not developers, that’s just business. Most companies today use applications from both environments, something that will probably continue to be the norm into the future. (We don’t want to use Word over the Internet as a service, no matter what Microsoft says. Same for PhotoShop)

There’s discussions — constantly — between server-side folks and the designers. I know that I’ve had a lively chat or two with the WSP people who are, primarily, web designers. But most developers I know of, such as myself, are thrilled to play with the new technologies the web has provided. There might be a few who don’t want to play web, but most of us are as happy (or more) working with web development as we are with traditional development.

The whole thing is really about services isn’t it? Providing services to people who need them. Most computer-based functionality is nothing more than services wrapped in a front end — doesn’t matter if the front end is a VB application or a web page. All that matters is that the services are prompt, efficient, secure, accurate, and effective. If some people prefer to create the front end in VB and put both service and front end on one machine, that’s cool. If they prefer a web page, that’s cool. Where’s the battle? Apples and oranges.

As for Netscape and Microsoft and the W3C not having a vision for the future of the web, oh they most certainly do and did. Microsoft’s whole vision is .NET and owning the internet. In fact, the company’s vision scares me most of the time. Netscape also had strong designs on the web before they became the underdog. As for the W3C, we wouldn’t have the web without this organization’s efforts. I may preach chaos, but I practice chaos on top of a specific development platform, and I have that platform thanks to the W3C.

The key is that there are a lot of groups and people who have their own visions for what is the future of the web. If we continue to work towards a common interface, then we can each practice our own vision and our own chaos behind that interface. But we must have this interface, and I’d rather it be provided by an organization that doesn’t profit, then one that does. The interface cannot be owned by any one company, any one organization, or any one person.

Categories
Photography

Razor Wire

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I wonder if my taking photos all around the Bay Bridge anchor room in full view of the National Guardsmen is to account for the increased security I’m seeing tonight. More helicopters than normal, and they’re flying closer to the Bridge.

I knew I was pushing it bringing out my camera and snapping away — especially getting the close ups of the razor wire against the bright sky. The gentlemen guardsmen were very tense, alert, following me as I moved about. However, I’m putting together a little pictorial essay of my neighborhood and I needed the photos. Nothing wrong with taking a little backyard photograph is there?

I didn’t get all I wanted, but I knew when enough was enough. I was very careful to let the soldiers see the camera at all times, and I dressed as innocuously as possible. These are no weekend warriors — these are people who are determined that nothing will happen to the Bay bridge on their watch.

See San Francisco! Nob Hill! Golden Gate Bridge! The cable cars!

The homeless! The garbage! The razor wire! The national guardsmen! The empty shops and vacant businesses!

By the way, do you think the razor wire picture or this one will be better for the California Photo contest?

Categories
Weblogging

Flow Bait

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Stavros, weblogging’s only Wonder Chicken and his rather interesting MetaFilter buddies have found a new use for our poor misused and overly worked Google — they’re using it to send “secret” messages to each other. Usually the kind of messages you don’t want your mama to see. Or my mama for that matter.

How does it work? Simply encode your message into a Google search string, making sure to include some reference that will guarantee that your friends weblog rises to something approximating the surface, and then click on your weblogging friend’s webpage in the results page. Bammo! Instant message — well instant if your friend is reading the referrers at the time.

Of course, an email is more sure and AOL IM is faster — but there’s something deliciously warped about Google Instant Messaging that appeals. It’s a weblogging thing.

Note: This only works if your intended targeted weblogger checks referrers (a referrer is a web link that leads to your page). However, since most people have also started using the Referrer Thingy, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Update: This is very tricky. You have to use the right combination of words to pull up the target weblog, and then you have to form your search string carefully to make sure you get at least one result back. See Advanced Search. Between this and googlewhacking, webloggers must be the most precise Google searchers in the world.

<edit />: Hey! I received a secret message:

    • burning bird hi shelley! is this flowbait?

Flow, baby. Flow.

Categories
Weblogging

Beautiful music and a web of discovery

Recovered from the Wayback machine.

I love music, all kinds of music — everything from Alanis Morissette to Lifehouse to Aerosmith to Sting to Billy Joel to the Beatles to Opera to Swing to classic rock and roll and on and on and on. Everything but disco and jazz that’s too heavy. You name it and unless it’s too extreme or bizarre, I’ll probably like it.

Tonight, there was one song I couldn’t get out of my mind — Rufus Wainright’s “Hallelujah” from, of all things, the movie Shrek. If you’ve seen the movie, you know the song I’m talking about — a beautiful melody that can bring tears to your eyes. Tonight I listened to it over and over again, while I did a little exploration.

I actually found a song about weblogging. Maybe you’ve seen it? It was almost a googlewhack, there’s only two links to it within Google. Part of it goes:

No one’s reading my web log.
No one cares about,
What I got to say, and I’m
Getting’ kind of discouraged.
Hope someone reads it all today.

I might just quit this here web log.
It’s too much trouble to,
Write it every day, and I’m
Getting kind of depressed, now,
Even more depressed than I was before.


Blowing the seeds off a dandelion, watching them get caught up in the wind and dance away, wondering where the seeds will land and if they’ll sprout.

    • At

Mandy’s Place

I don’t want to take another step. I don’t want to feel like I’m on a moving walkway that will force me to take that step whether I want to or not. I just want to stay here. I’m in a comfortable place right now or it is becoming comfortable. I don’t want to go out and fight battles right now. I know what is ahead and I don’t want to face it yet but the walkway keeps moving and I keep moving with it. I might have to start walking backwards but I don’t think that will help because then I’ll trip and fall down and I’d be really unprepared for what will come. I could turn around and start running the other way but that option doesn’t get me anywhere because then I’ll have to keep running for the rest of my life. I can’t try to always swim upstream. Someday I’ll see that it is shorter just to swim all the way across the river.

    • At

The Rock Pool

Back to school tomorrow.
I am torn between anticipating and dreading it. How I am ever going to get up at seven in the morning I do not know. How am I going to get used eating on a schedule again? Am I going to survive this year without getting majorly disillusioned with the whole schooling system and depressed. Again.

    • At

Stephie’s Blogger

LOOK EVERYONE! Michelle signed my guestbook! MICHELLE IS THE BEST GUESTBOOK SIGNER EVER! So this entry is just for her.

At

A Secret Smile

I blubbed when I heard Marjan died. He held his own through the worst abuses and as soon as he felt loved, nurtured and respected again he was safe enough to die.

    • At

fi-del-i-tie

Looking back from the perspective of 30 minutes later, I think I have a new verse for “Blowing in the Wind” – something about how long one poet can go. I won’t bore you with the rest – host makes nice comments; hairdresser reads; host lies nice comments…

    • At

A Step into the Mind of an Insane Lunatic

Can you dream a wish so high as to see it touch the sky and on the eve let it slip into the sea and off to shores unknown and far until the morning comes and offers to loan reality for the dream and real for the unseen?

Down on the wind.

Beautiful music and a web of discovery — it doesn’t get much better than this, does it?

Categories
Weblogging

January 28, 2002

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Bribes! Bribes! What’s this about bribes!

Dearest, the mugs were nothing more than party favors at a Blog Party. Best kind of party, too. I didn’t have to clean up after any drunks, or end up with someone reflecting a whole lot of bad taste or an advanced state of inebriation — or both.

Wait a sec…are you another Australian?

8:27pm

TX Meryl turned me on to a posting she knew I would like. Wrong. I LOVED it!

Gretchen Pirillo — whatever she says, is ditto for me. Double ditto. With fudge sauce. Tim Tams on the side. This posting made my evening!

Oh, and BTW, regarding having comments for weblogs: The only reason I write to this weblog is the joy of meeting all of you. I’ll trade 100 hits for one comment from you, my weblogging readers, any day, any minute, and second.

Now, excuse, I have to go think of a really good zinger back at Jonathon. Something realllly good.

6:22pm

I need to stop screwing around and get back to work, but wanted to drop in apologies for the slight down time earlier. I followed NJ Meryl’s suggestion about adding a little more variety to my comment counter and had the hardest time remembering that this was PHP, not Perl or Python. Crash and burn.

Speaking of coding: Garth are you playing around with someone’s closed source code? Tsk tsk tsk.

1:13pm

Per Jonathan – female orgasm pill. He thinks it will outsell viagra.

Sweet heart, whatever gives you the idea that we need a pill?

10:47am

And did you all notice that I now have a thought for the day, listed after the Blogicon items? Hmmm?

10:13am