i just wanted to make a couple of comments on this article. for one,
it is interesting how the only quotes coming out of w3c in the article
are from jimbo. i won't comment on why this occurs, i'll let the
reader guess. second, i find it hard to believe that gates generates
a buzz at mit. what are the students thinking? i figured if anyone
there were buzzing it would be the purist and anti-microshit bees
wanting to sting billy to death like those scary african meanies we
just heard about on npr. third, isn't it interesting how this article
is already slightly out-of-date? now, many are watching micro$oft as
the de facto web-centered "standards setting" organization. next,
marc's smugness about standards-related topics and his own
hyper-hypocrisy is really irritating. he needs an attitude
adjustment; any takers? i love fred's quote about censuring netscape
("Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste
good with ketchup."), i wonder if this is the prevailing attitude
within the ietf in general with all the recent stink about tlds and
whatnot?
finally, the whole "the browser is the os" vs "the network is the
computer" mottos are just a gas. i remember when people used to make
fun of me for having an emacs running at about 10mb and slowing down a
machine about as powerful as a pentium - but at least it does more for
me than a browser, is completely extendible, and actually is only as
big as it needs be.
ie 3.0 deliverable is sitting at just over 10mb for 95, 8mb for nt,
and 5.7mb for the mac? (of course, the mac install without java is
only 2.2mb - interesting, no?) likewise for netscape. if you'll note,
last i checked, that though plug-ins and the like are delivered as dlls
("load-on-demand" ... yeah, right!), your default app footprint grows
linearly with the number of plug-ins/activex controls you install.
visual j++ requires 24mb of memory folks!
i'm so sad. oh for the several multi-tasking full-blown operating
systems i've used in the past - amigaos at < 150kb and os/9 at < 48kb.
at least the javasoft folks are on the right track in terms of
footprint and dynamism (<4mb for os+base tool framework), but i'm
not sure how they can interoperate with the rest of the industries
bloat without becoming bloated themselves.
joe