Comments on: Ancient code drifting down the newsRiver http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/01/28/ancient-code-drifting-down-the-newsriver It's all spinning wheels and self-doubt until the first pot of coffee. Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:06:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0-alpha By: Raw » SWEO Suggestion #2 : Semantic Web in a Box http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/01/28/ancient-code-drifting-down-the-newsriver/comment-page-1#comment-3959 Raw » SWEO Suggestion #2 : Semantic Web in a Box Thu, 02 Feb 2006 21:18:45 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/?p=842#comment-3959 <p>[...] Frontier is closest in its level of self-containedness to how I picture SWAB. Ok, so that example is a fairly closed-box CMS, but hopefully you see the idea. Frontier is also ancient, but Les Orchard still found things to like - note in particular his phrase “instant gratification”. Exactly. [...]</p> [...] Frontier is closest in its level of self-containedness to how I picture SWAB. Ok, so that example is a fairly closed-box CMS, but hopefully you see the idea. Frontier is also ancient, but Les Orchard still found things to like – note in particular his phrase “instant gratification”. Exactly. [...]

]]> By: Danny http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/01/28/ancient-code-drifting-down-the-newsriver/comment-page-1#comment-3919 Danny Sat, 28 Jan 2006 16:57:00 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/?p=842#comment-3919 <p>"It’s still kind of a writing-with-my-wrong-hand kind of pain in the butt to get all the loose coupled stuff working sometimes." Nicely put, yup. Bit of a challenge. Coincidentally, yesterday the idea of "Semantic Web in a Box" came up - maybe the place to start would be "Web in a Box"...</p> “It’s still kind of a writing-with-my-wrong-hand kind of pain in the butt to get all the loose coupled stuff working sometimes.”
Nicely put, yup. Bit of a challenge.
Coincidentally, yesterday the idea of “Semantic Web in a Box” came up – maybe the place to start would be “Web in a Box”…

]]> By: l.m.orchard http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/01/28/ancient-code-drifting-down-the-newsriver/comment-page-1#comment-3918 l.m.orchard Sat, 28 Jan 2006 16:28:59 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/?p=842#comment-3918 <p>Danny: Yeah, I agree with a lot of those points, and they fall into the 'hate' side of the 'love/hate' thing for me. (Well, more like 'strong distaste' than 'hate' anyway).</p> <p>And I've realized that, since drifting away from Radio/Frontier, I've been recapturing it in various forms using tech like Python, triple-stores, mini-HTTP servers, and the like. And although these things have felt 'healtier' in a non-NIH, bigger community, more loosely coupled way... it's still a satisfying experience (like potato chips) to find it all buttoned up in one integrated package that works on most of the platforms I care about.</p> <p>It's still kind of a writing-with-my-wrong-hand kind of pain in the butt to get all the loose coupled stuff working sometimes. And many times, there are very good reasons for thing being hard and lots of things need minding. Like, XML-RPC style web services versus REST: </p> <p>REST is a cleaner, more web-natural approach—but sometimes it takes a lot of thoughtful meta-tinkering where that XML-RPC stuff would've had you on the road hours ago. Of course, years from now, the XML-RPC stuff might smell a bit while the REST stuff will have stayed solid and revealed further unexpected benefits... but bah. They both have their place.</p> <p>It's a lot like baked versus fried. Anyway, rambling now.</p> Danny: Yeah, I agree with a lot of those points, and they fall into the ‘hate’ side of the ‘love/hate’ thing for me. (Well, more like ’strong distaste’ than ‘hate’ anyway).

And I’ve realized that, since drifting away from Radio/Frontier, I’ve been recapturing it in various forms using tech like Python, triple-stores, mini-HTTP servers, and the like. And although these things have felt ‘healtier’ in a non-NIH, bigger community, more loosely coupled way… it’s still a satisfying experience (like potato chips) to find it all buttoned up in one integrated package that works on most of the platforms I care about.

It’s still kind of a writing-with-my-wrong-hand kind of pain in the butt to get all the loose coupled stuff working sometimes. And many times, there are very good reasons for thing being hard and lots of things need minding. Like, XML-RPC style web services versus REST:

REST is a cleaner, more web-natural approach—but sometimes it takes a lot of thoughtful meta-tinkering where that XML-RPC stuff would’ve had you on the road hours ago. Of course, years from now, the XML-RPC stuff might smell a bit while the REST stuff will have stayed solid and revealed further unexpected benefits… but bah. They both have their place.

It’s a lot like baked versus fried. Anyway, rambling now.

]]> By: Danny http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/01/28/ancient-code-drifting-down-the-newsriver/comment-page-1#comment-3917 Danny Sat, 28 Jan 2006 16:07:44 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/?p=842#comment-3917 <p>From what I've seen and read there are loads of good ideas in that platform, but there are two things I personally find extremely offputting : the pervading sense of Not Invented Here, and the sheer age (in the negative sense) of the stuff. </p> <p>Now the code's been open sourced, maybe there's a chance of the tastier crisps (UK localization) catching up and being integrated with the rest of the world. Ok, very IMHO but : swap US-ASCII for utf-8, XML-RPC for doc/literal XML, RSS 2.0 for Atom, Object Database for triplestore, Python for UserTalk, outliner for modern IDE (although actually the outliner UI is probably one bit that might be worth preserving as-is) etc. </p> <p>Well, ok, maybe it is a bit much to expect. Maybe a maximally interoperable version of the Frontier approach could be recreated (without reinvention) by plugging together various existing open source libs..?</p> <p>For now I guess I'll have to make do with Web as Platform (and/or Squeak) ;-)</p> From what I’ve seen and read there are loads of good ideas in that platform, but there are two things I personally find extremely offputting : the pervading sense of Not Invented Here, and the sheer age (in the negative sense) of the stuff.

Now the code’s been open sourced, maybe there’s a chance of the tastier crisps (UK localization) catching up and being integrated with the rest of the world. Ok, very IMHO but : swap US-ASCII for utf-8, XML-RPC for doc/literal XML, RSS 2.0 for Atom, Object Database for triplestore, Python for UserTalk, outliner for modern IDE (although actually the outliner UI is probably one bit that might be worth preserving as-is) etc.

Well, ok, maybe it is a bit much to expect. Maybe a maximally interoperable version of the Frontier approach could be recreated (without reinvention) by plugging together various existing open source libs..?

For now I guess I’ll have to make do with Web as Platform (and/or Squeak) ;-)

]]> By: l.m.orchard http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/01/28/ancient-code-drifting-down-the-newsriver/comment-page-1#comment-3916 l.m.orchard Sat, 28 Jan 2006 16:01:26 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/?p=842#comment-3916 <p>Robert: Short answer is that I saw Radio first for the RSS aggregator and blogging support, started hacking on that, and got sucked into other aspects of it along the way. </p> <p>For Squeak, I saw some fun colorful things and kind of got the gist of the environment, but never got hooked on any daily uses of it after a weekend or two of playing. So, it fell into my "Learn Smalltalk" todo item that keeps getting pushed down the list by other things. That item's still on my list, though, and I mean to get to it someday...</p> Robert: Short answer is that I saw Radio first for the RSS aggregator and blogging support, started hacking on that, and got sucked into other aspects of it along the way.

For Squeak, I saw some fun colorful things and kind of got the gist of the environment, but never got hooked on any daily uses of it after a weekend or two of playing. So, it fell into my “Learn Smalltalk” todo item that keeps getting pushed down the list by other things. That item’s still on my list, though, and I mean to get to it someday…

]]> By: Robert Brook http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/01/28/ancient-code-drifting-down-the-newsriver/comment-page-1#comment-3915 Robert Brook Sat, 28 Jan 2006 15:03:50 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/?p=842#comment-3915 <p>Serious question: why not use Squeak?</p> Serious question: why not use Squeak?

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