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Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.
 
Permanent link to archive for Sunday, July 13, 2003. Sunday, July 13, 2003

New feature: Manila sites now have a robots.txt file. By default it just tells search engine robots to skip the page of referers, thereby eliminating any benefit for spamming the Referers page. Of course they'll still do it, or maybe they'll get a clue and spam someone else.  

I called Jing Jing and told them to expect 25 people. I bet it's going to be more. I've been getting lots of RSVPs. They're good at handling large groups. Marc Canter won't be able to be there, so we'll have to figure out how to order on our own. Also, some people have asked if I'm going to treat. No. I'm only paying for Cheyenne and myself. She says Superman is coming and she's afraid. I said she should sit next to me. I had spinach for lunch and I'm bringing my Kryptonite. That made her swoon.  

Rich Salz: "Sometimes RSS uses XML in a way that is rather, well, funky."  

A picture named salz.jpgRich is a good guy. We became friends at XML Devcon. He's from Lawn Guyland (I'm from Queens) and he lives in Boston (me too). We have never gotten along on the mail lists, probably has a lot to do with the difference between writing style and personality. There is a difference. Rich has a great smile, and if you look him in the eye and say Whuh Da Fuck in a NY accent he laughs. Anyway, that's the miracle of face-to-face meets. First, we have to get along as human beings, then we can solve any technical problem. So Rich all the things you mention that are funky about RSS are either history, or misunderstandings. When I said a feed is funky, I in no way meant to say it wasn't valid. I meant it had a funky style. Less than optimal for interop. Nothing more. Sometimes I don't realize how much power I have. Sometimes other people don't realize that I have opinions that aren't meant to be laws. I also start conversations by making strong statements and see if anyone agrees or disagrees. That's just my way of getting a discussion going. Watch for an "imho" or "I think" as a clue that this is what I'm doing. I bet Rich knows that about me, after just a couple of days. But people who only know me from mail lists and this weblog, even for years, might not get that. So many of our problems probably originate right there. I had a great dinner with Peter Drayton and Brian Jepson where we talked about this, and we got somewhere, believe it or not.  

For 15 points can you spot the new speaker? 

What is Scripting News: "In programming we tend to reinvent what others have invented, or even worse, patent things that other people have invented." 

Rory: "I really wish people would stop throwing chairs (figuratively) at the guy. He's passionate, and passionate people tend to stir up trouble." 

I hope to have the last word with people who flame me. 

Slashdot on Howard Dean guest-blogging at Lessig's. 

Leslie Walker: "The blogosphere may never be the same after America Online releases free blog-publishing software to its 34 million members this summer." 

Don Park: "Blogs will fade away within two years." 

Don says he'll be at the Jing Jing dinner later today. 

Two years ago Evan Williams said: "I wasn't terribly surprised to learn that 83.6% of Blogger visitors use IE5.x." 

This essay on my Manila site has been read 149,896 times. 

Where are we going today? 

A picture named dave.jpgThere's one flaw in Bray's latest rant, something like 99.99 percent of the people who use PCs use Windows PCs. That forces developers to opt for the trunk, to plow the mastah's field, if they like to be where the people are. Yes they like browser-based software, me too, but if they were editing their website for any length of time in the browser, they'd yearn for the good old days of WYSIWYG and spell-checkers (I spell really well, and would trade off wizzy for an outliner, and have). This is what the anti-trust trial was really about. Microsoft won't upgrade the browser the way Don Park says they will (see above) because that would help a free product cannibalize a for-pay product. They own both. We're about to yearn for the good old days of developing in a locked trunk, because we are now developing for a platform that's in the dumpster, and soon will be in the dump. At least the locked trunk was going somewhere. Of course, developers, idiots that they are, are fighting over bullshit instead of building something that's too big to fit in the dump truck.

Equal time: Scoble, the Microsoft evangelist, gives Tim another bone to chew.

To both, there's no reason you can't do desktop apps that communicate over the Web using XML-RPC and have the best of both worlds, developing for the Internet and plowing the master's field at the same time.

Paolo: "On one side a few huge companies, with lots of resources, controlling most of the environment, and on the other side a bunch of smart developers who are too small, too focused on their own agendas and probably too short sighted to get out from this situation."

Brent: "I don’t like the sharecropper metaphor they use to describe developers who write apps for specific operating systems."

The last word on flaming -- hehe 

Here's the current last entry in the comments on Scott Rosenberg's post about people flaming about my editing Scripting News as the day goes by. Sometimes I delete things. They think this is corrupt, evil, impure, disgusting, it must be stopped, who does he think he is. Here's my comment.

I learned early on that flaming comes with the territory. I expect it. I am not impressed by it. But it's normal.

Ernie, I am just one person. I am not the NY Times. I spread the work out, as I've explained before, it's part of the philosophy of weblogs. I don't have a staff of people here writing it. That's why it's real. And sometimes I change my mind. That's real too.

I've told you what to expect, my deadline is 10PM Pacific. My edits are visible. If you don't think that's right, compete and prove me wrong.

Otherwise get this -- I can't and won't change to please all of you. That's not why I write. I write because I have something to say. When I no longer have anything to say, I hope I have the good sense to stop writing.

Bill Seitz, I'm not flaming Mark. Honestly I'd like to ask him some questions. He doesn't want to be asked those questions. That's all that's really going on in the back-and-forth you see.

Anyway, I'm on the road. What a new perspective that gives me for these flamefests. This so unimportant. Solve a world problem. If you spend any time trying to get me to change the way I write, you're missing the scope of things. You are powerless to change me. Focus on areas where you have power. Be dignified, show self-respect. Complaining about the personality of someone you've never met is a ridiculous waste of time. My opinion of course. Have a nice day.

     

Last update: Sunday, July 13, 2003 at 10:47 PM Eastern.

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