|
Nick Gall's Weblog
 |
Saturday, July 30, 2005 |
Update on the origin of the term "middleware".Someone (named simply "Don") saw my entry on the origin of the term middleware and was nice enough to email me a reference to an even earlier citation from 1968! The term middleware was used in the famous report of the 1968 NATO Software Engineering Conference:
I'd heard of the famous NATO Software Engineering conf/paper but never seen it. It seems like middleware may be as old as software.
I
find it very interesting that in 1968, it was used to refer to software
used to adapt generic file system functionality to specific application
functionality needs. More generally, I guess you could call middleware "software in the middle of application software and system software."
6:54:05 AM 
|
|
|
Saturday, July 23, 2005 |
|
Monday, July 18, 2005 |
Amazing hack--The data: URL Scheme.In tracking down the documentation on Firefox's about: URI scheme (aka URL scheme), I came across the amazing data: scheme, which is an IETF standard. The data:
scheme basically enables you to encode any element of an HTML page, or
even the an entire HTML page itself, into a URI. In other words, data:
enables you to directly embed a resource into web page, instead of
linking to it. (Technically, the resource is embedded in the URI, but
since the URI is embedded in the web page, it is for most purposes, the
same thing.) Here is an example of a mini web site encoded in a URI. Look at the status bar of your browser to get a hint of what it looks like.
This hack reminds me of the javascript: scheme (aka javascript: protocol) which enables the very useful bookmarklet hacks. However, unlike data:, the javascript:
scheme is not standard. One drawback is the limit on URI length, which
appears to be about 4000 characters. The Wikipedia entry for data: links to some useful resources including the kitchen, which is how I created my demo encoded/embedded web page.
11:18:54 AM
|
|
The Unitarian Jihad is an amazing example of Web-enabled emergence.A while ago, I posted an entry on the Unitarian Jihad. Well, this being the Web, it's taken on a life of its own. To see what I mean, check out the comprehensive Wikipedia entry on UJ, which describes the UJ as follows:
Unitarian Jihad is a nascent satirical religious/humanist movement which opposes religious extremism of all kinds through peaceful means.
The concept of the Unitarian Jihad originated in a column by writer Jon Carroll which was originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 8, 2005. The column intentionally juxtaposed the Unitarian Universalistfaith and rational discussion with the Islamic concept of (militant) Jihad, and used the conceit of having received an anonymous communique from the then non-existent group. Note how many different sites mentioned in the entry have sprung up.
One of my favorites is the name generator. Here is what it generated
for me:
While the spread of the UJ meme is a humorous example, it is nonetheless a
powerful demonstration of how the Web enables the emergence of
spontaneous order. Let me walk you through it:
- I find out about the UJ article from one of the blogs or newsletters I read (I can't remember which).
- I bookmark it in Furl: UJ Bookmark.
- Several
weeks later, I look at my UJ bookmark (long story having to do with
looking into my Furl Religion folder for some other search on
Unitarianism).
- I notice that someone named number-six
has also Furled UJ with the following comment: "See:
http://homepage.mac.com/whump/ujname.html to get your uj name. More
here: http://www.livejournal.com/community/unitarian_jihad/ .
- So I go to the UJ page at livejournal.
- I am amazed to find over 300 members listed on the UJ community page. I'm even more amazed to find that the community had apparently been created on the same day as the article, April 8, 2005!
- From these pages I discover the name generators and the Wikipedia entry
The point of going through this in detail is to give you a flavor
of the serendipity of the emergence process. Imagine, just a few months
after an article is published an entire
community and an rich set of Web resources emerge into being! This is
enabled by two "new" aspects of the 2nd Web Generation (aka Web 2.0):
- The ability of individuals to easily create new Web resources: content, groups, tools, bookmarks, etc.
- The automatic generation of backlinks, e.g., who also linked this page, what pages contain this phrase
These two capabilities are at the heart of the Web's ability to generate spontaneous order.
6:40:35 AM
|
|
|
Saturday, July 09, 2005 |
Using the web to organize collective fundraising.Via slashdot, an interesting new twist on the decentralization, mass innovation, social software them -- Fundable:
Fundable is a new service that lets groups of people pool money for
various purposes in what are called "group actions." Similar to an
online auction, a group action has its own page, describing how much
money will be collected and what the money will do. No participant
takes a risk: if the collection for a group action falls short of its
target on deadline, all money is refunded.
Fundable's all-or-nothing approach to collecting money lets you
participate in a group purchase or fundraiser without worrying about
what other people will do. You will either get what you paid for or get
your money back.
According to the slashdot article, Fundable has already succeeded in raising funds for OSS development.
Hmmm... I might use this to organize the next Gall Family Reunion. <grin>
5:31:36 AM
|
|
|
Friday, July 08, 2005 |
A true ironist.Via Strange Doctrines, a Washington Post article about a man who really lives the concept of "contingency":
"What are the chances of you doing this again?" the judge asked.
Timmers -- dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit, his long, white hair flowing down his back -- paused a moment before speaking up.
"There's always a chance of anything, Your Honor," he said.
The judge's jaw dropped. He pressed Timmers to be clear.
"The odds of that happening are 800 million billion to one," Timmers said, "but I can't ever rule anything out completely, Sir."
The irony is that his
honesty has already gotten him more jail time (i.e., the delay in
sentencing). What I also like about this piece is the chain of linked
commentary about it. I especially like the commentary at Thoughts Arguments and Rants:
Don't be a Sceptic
Luka Yovetich sent me a link to this article in the Washington Post
about the costs of scepticism. The defendent was asked whether he would
commit more crimes if he was released, and (to paraphrase) he said that
he didn't know because he didn't have an answer to global scepticism.
As they say on the interwebs, read the whole thing. You'll laugh,
you'll cry, you'll recognise behaviour that previously you'd only seen
in philosophical colleagues, etc.
11:51:23 AM
|
|
Great WS-* Case Study.Tim Bray has done a great case study write up about WS-*. Here's the intro:
Last week at Java One, Ashesh Badani, a Sun SOA marketing person, wanted to
have lunch with me to talk about WS-*. He brought along T.N. Subramaniam,
Director of Technology for
RouteOne, a car-loan aggregator.
(Sun loves RouteOne, they're a reference customer not only for us but for
SeeBeyond, which we're in the process
of acquiring).
Anyhow, neither Ashesh nor Ashok Mollin, a Sun guy who's been engaged at
RouteOne, got a chance to say much, because
T.N. and I hit it off and had a good time talking about Web Services.
Which RouteOne are doing, big time and for big bucks and successfully.
They are exactly
the kind of people that those of us struggling in the WS-* morass ought to be
looking to for lessons.
This, I think, will be the first ever ongoing piece
structured as an interview; with T.N.'s help, I've tried to reconstruct our
conversation at lunch.
I think some conclusions are obvious, but I'll leave them for you to
draw.
I'd bottom line the advice from TN as "So far so good, but as you fill out WS-* KISS (instead of addressing marginal cases)."
11:29:20 AM
|
|
|
