From: Dave Winer (dave@userland.com)
Date: Sun Dec 31 2000 - 09:22:45 PST
Mark, that's very cool.
Sign me up as a member of the Simplification Party.
I think you've noticed something that's very true -- program-to-program
communication has been going on for a long time, even using HTTP of course,
and locked-in formats like Apple Events and COM, and not-widely-deployed
formats like CORBA. There's nothing new in the distributed computing
formats. Nothing. It's a mere adaptation of an existing philosophy to a new
transport and encoding.
My goal is to make this ever-more-accessible, and spread the benefits of
compatibility across all environments, without favoring any, with total
inclusivity. Let the flowers bloom where they are, they don't have to move
to be part of a great garden. We'll come to them.
We've learned from the terrible situation in Web browsers that we must have
choice. So coming up with some common patterns and simplifying has made it
possible for us to have choices. I want to be able to switch to Python
painlessly, or have my content served by a Perl app, with no glitches. For
that to happen we have to start building. And that has already started. Why
do people love XML-RPC and SOAP? They do. Read the articles and posts on the
mail list. It's simple and easy. It shows them how to do it. They needed to
be shown. And because we use the same formats our stuff is interchangeable
and in some small way, not in the future, today, more users have choice.
To be powerful the users must have choices. This is one of those times when
one is ill-served looking to the gorillas for an explanation. Talk to the
users, they understand. ;->
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Baker" <mbaker@cpu2164.adsl.bellglobal.com>
To: <fork@xent.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2000 9:14 AM
Subject: Re: [CNET] Web services -- a 2001 thing?
> > Now at every step, some well-meaning person who thought he knew it all
would
> > say "What do I need that for, I like entering my programs on front-panel
> > switches. What does this do that I can't do with switches?"
>
> Absolutely. We just disagree on who's playing what role. 8-)
>
> Also, despite what you might think, I'm not a company man. One of the
> perks of working at a company that doesn't adequately bind their standards
> activities with their product development, is that I can set my own
agenda.
> And that agenda is to simplify, and to encourage people to take advantage
> of the features of existing standards, and to work on new ones only when
> required.
>
> MB
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