test http://namespaces2.test Jon Udell's Radio Blog Thu, 12 Sep 2002 21:03:44 GMT Jon Udell, judell@mv.com Copyright 2002 Jon Udell InfoWorld Collaborative ER design with the Flash Communication Server http://namespaces2.test/udell/2002/09/12.html#a410 <FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Jeremy Allaire points to a nifty concept demo:</FONT> <b>...</b> <A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/flashErDiagram.JPG"><IMG height=180 src="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/flashErDiagram.JPG" width=200 align=right></A> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Jeremy Allaire points to a nifty concept demo:</FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P><A href="http://www.naturaltype.com/er-diagram.html"><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>This simple example application</FONT></EM></A><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> demonstrates the direction we're headed with social computing based on real-time applications. It's built with </FONT></EM><A href="http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/"><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Flash MX</FONT></EM></A><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> and the </FONT></EM><A href="http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashcom/"><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Flash Communication Server</FONT></EM></A><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>, which provide an interesting platform to explore real-time communications and collaboration applications. [</FONT></EM><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0113297/2002/09/11.html#a5"><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Jeremy Allaire's Radio</FONT></EM></A><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>]</FONT></EM></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>I've got a window parked in the corner of my screen, where I'm sometimes tinkering with this evolving diagram, and mostly watching other ghostly hands tinker with it. It's eerie, fascinating, and thought-provoking. In a </FONT><A href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/webservices/2002/08/02/flashcomm.html"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>recent column</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> over at the O'Reilly Network, I explored the messaging and persistence architecture that enables this style of application.</FONT></P> 20020912T11:39:34 Jeremy Allaire's blog http://namespaces2.test/udell/2002/09/11.html#a409 <FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>A new addition to my CTO blogroll is Jeremy Allaire, Macromedia's CTO. </FONT> <b>...</b> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>A new addition to my CTO blogroll is Jeremy Allaire, Macromedia's CTO. </FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>While I'll sometimes post Macromedia specific content here, the intention is really to explore the broad technologies, ideas and companies that are working on the converence of media, communications and applications. [</FONT><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0113297/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Jeremy Allaire's Radio</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>]</FONT></EM></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Excellent!</FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Jeremy opens with a demo of a </FONT><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0113297/2002/09/11.html#a4"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Flash&nbsp;rich-text editor</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. Great concept, as I've </FONT><A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2002/06/05.html#a288"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>mentioned</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> before. In a similar vein,&nbsp;Derek Robinson recently pointed me to the&nbsp;</FONT><A href="http://webaccess.mozquito.com/features/index.xml"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>DENG project</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>.&nbsp;Here's what Derek had to say about it:</FONT></P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P><EM>Pretty interesting stuff shaping up there -- e.g. an all-xhtml (+css, +xpath, +xslt) browser/editor in FlashMX, whew!</EM></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P dir=ltr>Anyway, looking forward to more from Jeremy on his and Macromedia's&nbsp;strategic thinking. Welcome!</P> <P dir=ltr></FONT>&nbsp;</P> <P>&nbsp;</P> 20020911T16:20:08 Mastering the network form http://namespaces2.test/udell/2002/09/10.html#a408 <FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>With the 9/11 anniversary upon us, debate rages over a web syndication format known as RSS, which stands for Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary, Really Simple Syndication, or my favorite, </FONT><A href="http://www.rss.org/mission.htm"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. </FONT> <b>...</b> <TABLE width=200 align=right border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD><A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/hammersleyCommentSite.jpg"><IMG alt="Mastering the network form" src="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/hammersleyCommentSite.jpg" width=200 align=right border=1></A> <TR> <TD align=middle><A href="http://rss.benhammersley.com/archives/001321.rdf"><FONT size=2>Ben's feed</FONT></A> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>With the 9/11 anniversary upon us, debate rages over a web syndication format known as RSS, which stands for Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary, Really Simple Syndication, or my favorite, </FONT><A href="http://www.rss.org/mission.htm"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Only some of those who read and write blogs -- perhaps very few -- have yet to discover the magic of syndication's two-way flow. Of that small number, fewer yet are even aware of the debate, and might find it as silly as the </FONT><A href="http://www.classicbookshelf.com/library/jonathan_swift/gulliver_s_travels/9/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>egg controversy</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> that divided Lilliput from Blefescu. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Throughout this whole excruciating process, and especially during the recent flare-up, there has been a deep implicit consensus. While bitterly arguing about which end of the egg to crack, everyone is busily cracking eggs and making omelettes. The debate is spread across </FONT><A href="http://www.scripting.com/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>a</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> </FONT><A href="http://www.oreillynet.com/~rael"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>series</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> </FONT><A href="http://www.intertwingly.net/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>of</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> </FONT><A href="http://rss.benhammersley.com/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>weblogs</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>, </FONT><A href="http://www.diveintomark.org/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>all</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> </FONT><A href="http://weblog.burningbird.net/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>connected</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> </FONT><A href="http://www.newsisfree.com/blog"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>to</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> </FONT><A href="http://www.peerfear.org/rss/permalink/1031305367.shtml"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>one</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> </FONT><A href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000574"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>another</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> by means of interoperable variants of the very RSS format being so fiercely debated. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>RSS is, all the while, broadcasting many more channels than the Lilliput vs. Blefescu rematch. For example, this morning's program included another in a series of remarkable essays from Ray Ozzie. In </FONT><A href="http://www.ozzie.net/blog/stories/2002/09/10/tyrannyTerrorAndTechnology.html"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Tyranny, Terror, and Technology</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>, Ray muses memorably on what it means to "master the network form," and issues a </FONT><A href="http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue6_10/ronfeldt/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>volley</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> </FONT><A href="http://www.smartmobs.com/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>of</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> </FONT><A href="http://www.orgnet.com/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>links</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> on swarming, social network analysis, and the interplay of hierarchy and decentralization. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>US-style democracy at its best, Ray says, shows mastery of the network form -- a skill that always was (and still is) a matter of survival first, and then a condition of prosperity. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>An aspect of that mastery, and what has kept the RSS discussion flowing even as it questions the foundations of its own format, is something that in the realm of web services has lately come to be called <I>loose coupling</I>. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>In the </FONT><A href="http://rss.benhammersley.com/archives/001321.html#001321"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>comments area</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> of </FONT><A href="http://rss.benhammersley.com/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Ben Hammersley's blog</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>, I wrote: </FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE><I> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>I don't see how the option [to advance Semantic Web goals in concert with RSS-based syndication] is lost if RDF vocabularies are handled, in RSS, by reference rather than by value. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>The entity called Jon Udell has lots of facets, some electronic. I know we share a vision in which some mechanism enables those facets to be threaded together, and related to other sets of facets, for a lot of useful purposes. I'm perfectly happy for that mechanism to be RDF. However since RDF addresses a MUCH more general problem domain than weblog/website syndication, I have concluded that a looser coupling of RDF and RSS best serves both sets of objectives. </FONT></P></I></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Ben responds: </FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE><I> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Hmmmmm...looser coupling? That sounds interesting. How do you mean? Can you give an example? Is that like semrefs? </FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P></I><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Semrefs? Urp. Wait a sec... </FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE><I> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Neo: "Can you fly that thing?" </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Trinity: "Not yet. Tank, I need a pilot program for a V212 helicopter." </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Jon: </FONT><A href="http://www.google.com/search?q=semref"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2><a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=semref">http://www.google.com/search?q=semref</a></FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> </FONT></P></I></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Eyelids flutter briefly. Oh yeah, of course: </FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE><I> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Each COMPL is defined as being formed by two components: CAT and SEMREF. In CAT the syntactic category of the complement is indicated (NP, PP, ...) and only argument complements are included. On the other hand, the value SEMREF belongs to an ontological type (animated, object, ...) that has an index assigned that relates it with an element of the argument structure. [</FONT><A href="http://crl.nmsu.edu/Events/FWOI/SecondWorkshop/PapersFinal/castellon.final.rtf"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>An Interlingua Representation Based on The Lexico-Semantic Information</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>] </FONT></P></I></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Seriously, Ben, although I am a Noam Chomsky fan and have more than an inkling what this is about, I'm not sure how to answer your question.&nbsp;But my gut tells me it doesn't need to be baked into RSS in order to play nicely with RSS. </FONT><A href="http://www.infoworld.com/articles/pl/xml/02/05/20/020520pllinks.xml"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Hyperlinks matter</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>However this turns out, I'm encouraged to see that we're starting to master the network form -- maybe better than we give ourselves credit for. </FONT></P> 20020910T20:00:17 RSS Namespaces in the Scripting News feed http://namespaces2.test/udell/2002/09/10.html#a407 <FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Sam Ruby notes that the Scripting News RSS feed now&nbsp;declares a namespace:</FONT> <b>...</b> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Sam Ruby notes that the Scripting News RSS feed now&nbsp;declares a namespace:</FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2><EM>While it is not yet listed in the spec, Scripting News's </EM></FONT><A href="http://www.scripting.com/rss.xml"><STRONG><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2><EM>rss feed</EM></FONT></STRONG></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2><EM> is sporting a namespace!&nbsp; <STRONG>Excellent!</STRONG>&nbsp; Now it is quite reasonable for a parser to say things like, "sorry, there is no fullitem element defined in the </EM></FONT><A href="http://backend.userland.com/rss2"><A href="http://backend.userland.com/rss2"><STRONG><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2><EM><a href="http://backend.userland.com/rss2">http://backend.userland.com/rss2</a></EM></FONT></STRONG></A></A><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> namespace - hey, Jon, get your own namespace." [</FONT><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0101679/2002/09/10.html#a818"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Sam Ruby</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>]</FONT></EM></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Cool. Actually I don't need a namespace of my own, I'm using some existing ones: Dublin Core and RSS 1.0's mod_content. Here's how I'm forming the &lt;dc:date&gt; now, by the way:</FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>add("&lt;dc:date&gt;" + html.getOneTagValue(xml.coercions.frontierValueToTaggedText(@adrpost^.when,0), "dateTime.iso8601") + "&lt;/dc:date&gt;");</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>I realized Radio had to have the iso8601 logic in there for SOAP. This is one way to get at it. </FONT></P> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Sam continues: </FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P dir=ltr><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>We still have an opportunity to heal some of the rift between the two branches - simply by embracing instead of displacing one or more of the existing </FONT></EM><A href="http://directory.google.com/Top/Reference/Libraries/Library_and_Information_Science/Technical_Services/Cataloguing/Metadata/RDF/Applications/RSS/Specifications/RSS1.0_Modules/"><STRONG><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>modules</FONT></EM></STRONG></A><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>.</FONT></EM></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>I agree. I'd like to see Scripting News not merely declare an abstract&nbsp;namespace, but actually&nbsp;use elements from well-known namespaces such as Dublin Core. </FONT></P> <P dir=ltr>&nbsp;</P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P><EM><FONT face=Verdana size=2></FONT></EM>&nbsp;</P></BLOCKQUOTE> 20020910T09:26:02 RSS Transition in perspective http://namespaces2.test/udell/2002/09/09.html#a406 <FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>I really like the exchange between Kevin Burton and Mark Pilgrim, which Dave Winer </FONT><A href="http://scriptingnews.userland.com/backissues/2002/09/09#theGreatRdfDebateReduced"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>quotes today</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. In particular, this comment from Mark:</FONT> <b>...</b> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>I really like the exchange between Kevin Burton and Mark Pilgrim, which Dave Winer </FONT><A href="http://scriptingnews.userland.com/backissues/2002/09/09#theGreatRdfDebateReduced"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>quotes today</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. In particular, this comment from Mark:</FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2><EM>Keep in mind, however, that HTML is just a temporary diversion while people are still trying to grasp SGML. [</EM></FONT><A href="http://diveintomark.org/archives/2002/09/09.html#quickly"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2><EM>diveintomark</EM></FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2><EM>]</EM></FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>This reminds me of a panel at an XML conference. I sat next to Tim Bray, who was asked when XML would replace HTML on the web. His answer was, roughly, "Don't hold your breath, but don't worry about it, either." Although I keep hoping for a transition to fully XML-aware writing tools, I'm not holding my breath, and I'm trying not to worry, either.</FONT></P> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Here's another great observation from Tim Bray, in response to the question: "Where's the schema for RSS?":</FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P dir=ltr><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Many on this list will find it shocking, but lots of important XML dialects don't have any DTDs or schemas.&nbsp; Particularly in the application-glue space.&nbsp; People email back and forth some examples, they cut some code, and then everything's working and they're too busy to go back and write a schema.<BR><BR>In fact, I am at this very moment working on a proposal to do some data mapping of a big information pool that can generate XML output, they just sent us some sample instances, seemed to do the job.<BR><BR>I don't 100% approve of doing it this way, but that doesn't stop people doing it, and (at least sometimes) getting good results. [</FONT><A href="http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200209/msg00056.html"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>lists.xml.org</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>]</FONT></EM></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>This rings true for me.<BR></P></FONT> 20020909T08:57:38 RSS XML Encoded content in RSS, and Sam Ruby's suggestions/corrections http://namespaces2.test/udell/2002/09/09.html#a405 <FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>On Friday night I experimentally assigned the 2.0 version number to my feeds. Although I haven't heard about any problems related to that, I'm dropping back to 0.92 until the 2.0 spec ceases to be marked as a draft. But I'm keeping the &lt;content:encoded&gt; element as an alternative to the former &lt;fullitem&gt;. Both have the same status in 0.92: not contemplated, but not forbidden either.</FONT> <b>...</b> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>On Friday night I experimentally assigned the 2.0 version number to my feeds. Although I haven't heard about any problems related to that, I'm dropping back to 0.92 until the 2.0 spec ceases to be marked as a draft. But I'm keeping the &lt;content:encoded&gt; element as an alternative to the former &lt;fullitem&gt;. Both have the same status in 0.92: not contemplated, but not forbidden either.</FONT></P> <P><A href="http://www.mplode.com/tima/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Timothy Appnel</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif><FONT size=2> wrote to point out something that&nbsp;I've also considered: <EM>"You should use CDATA in the content:encoded tagsets and not entity encoded HTML." </EM></FONT></FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>On the one hand, the <A href="http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/">mod_content spec</A> says of &lt;content:encoded&gt;:</FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2><EM>"An element whose contents are the entity-encoded or CDATA-escaped version of the content of the item."</EM></FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Clearly entity-encoding&nbsp;fits&nbsp;best with current practice. But I agree that&nbsp;CDATA is more desirable for a variety of reasons.&nbsp;Perhaps now with namespaces we can have a transitional strategy that accommodates both?</FONT></P> <P><FONT size=2>PS: Just catching up with Sam Ruby's <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0101679/2002/09/07.html#a808">eagle-eyed observations</A>. Thanks Sam. I've modified &lt;docs&gt;. And while I'd love to use Perl to munge that date, I'm doing this in UserTalk. If somebody can point me to a UserTalk equivalent, I'd be most thankful. I'm sure it's been done somewhere -- probably even somewhere in radio.root. Life's too short to reinvent that particular wheel&nbsp;:-)</FONT></P> <P><FONT size=2>PPS: Urp. Obviously not firing on all cylinders this morning! </FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P><EM>Just to let you know, </EM><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0101679/2002/09/07.html#a808"><STRONG><EM>that is UserTalk</EM></STRONG></A><EM>.&nbsp; Written and debugged using Radio's QuickScript window (a.k.a. Ctrl-;).&nbsp; Enjoy! [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0101679/2002/09/09.html#a815">Sam Ruby</A>]</EM></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P dir=ltr>Sheesh, how embarrassing.&nbsp;Thanks Sam! Meanwhile, I notice that if the scratchpad has a weblog posting, then this:</P> <P dir=ltr>xml.coercions.frontierValueToTaggedText (@scratchpad.thisPost.when,0) </P> <P>produces:</P> <P>&lt;dateTime.iso8601&gt;20020909T08:57:38&lt;/dateTime.iso8601&gt;</P> <P>from which the iso8601 date could be extracted.&nbsp;Frontier gurus: Is there a way to get directly at it?</P> <P><U><FONT color=#0000ff></FONT></U>&nbsp;</P> 20020909T08:20:53 RSS Experimenting with RSS 2.0 http://namespaces2.test/udell/2002/09/06.html#a404 <FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Assuming the RSS core is now frozen, Sam Ruby pointed out that version 2.0 makes the &lt;fullitem&gt; element in my feed bogus, and suggested I move it into the </FONT><A href="http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>mod_content</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> module, one of a </FONT><A href="http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/modules/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>series of modules</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> designed for RSS 1.0. Good idea! Along with Rael Dornfest and others, I've always liked the idea of </FONT><A href="http://www.oreillynet.com/~rael/data/xml/rss/modular/demo/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif><FONT size=2>"RSS 0.9x-style simple XML syntax with room for expansion"<SUP>[<A href="http://www.raelity.org/archives/2002/09/05#computers/data/rss/rss_flowers">1]</SUP></FONT></FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. </FONT> <b>...</b> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Assuming the RSS core is now frozen, Sam Ruby pointed out that version 2.0 makes the &lt;fullitem&gt; element in my feed bogus, and suggested I move it into the </FONT><A href="http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>mod_content</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> module, one of a </FONT><A href="http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/modules/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>series of modules</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> designed for RSS 1.0. Good idea! Along with Rael Dornfest and others, I've always liked the idea of </FONT><A href="http://www.oreillynet.com/~rael/data/xml/rss/modular/demo/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif><FONT size=2>"RSS 0.9x-style simple XML syntax with room for expansion"<SUP>[<A href="http://www.raelity.org/archives/2002/09/05#computers/data/rss/rss_flowers">1]</SUP></FONT></FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>I was already using the </FONT><A href="http://scriptingnews.userland.com/backissues/2002/05/09#aSmallChange"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>alternate RSS writer callback mechanism</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>, which Dave Winer provided a while ago, in order to override the default RSS writer and insert &lt;fullitem&gt;, an element containing the complete text of each blog item. This was a hack that has enabled me to maintain two feeds. In the first, the bogus &lt;fullitem&gt; was ignored by aggregators, but was transformed (by XSLT) into the &lt;description&gt; in the second feed. Meanwhile, back in the first feed, the &lt;description&gt; is truncated to just its first paragraph. That's done by means of </FONT><A href="http://radio.userland.com/descriptionFilterCallbacks"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>another callback mechanism</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> Dave added so those of us who write longer items needn't overwhelm those who read them in RSS aggregators. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>The alternate RSS writer is a script I call myRssWriter, which lives in the table called user.radio.callbacks.writeRssFile. It is a wholesale replacement for the standard RSS writer, system.verbs.builtins.radio.weblog.writeRssFile. Originally I just cloned that script and made a few tweaks. Here were the additional tweaks I made tonight to create what will hopefully be a kosher 2.0 feed. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>First, I changed this: </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>add ("&lt;rss version=\"0.92\"&gt;"); </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>to this: </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>add ("&lt;rss version=\"2.0\" xmlns:content=\"<a href="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/">http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/</a>\" xmlns:dc=\"<a href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/</a>\" &gt;"); </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>I'm actually invoking two modules here: the content module for my fullitem element, and the Dublin Core module for the date. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Then, I changed from: </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>add("&lt;pubDate&gt;" + date.netStandardString(adrpost^.when) + "&lt;/pubDate&gt;"); <BR>add("&lt;fullitem&gt;" + fullitem + "&lt;/fullitem&gt;"); </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>to: </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>add("&lt;dc:date&gt;" + date.netStandardString(adrpost^.when) + "&lt;/dc:date&gt;"); <BR>add("&lt;content:encoded&gt;" + fullitem + "&lt;/content:encoded&gt;"); </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>The &lt;dc:date&gt; was, admittedly, gratuitous. I could have left &lt;pubDate&gt; alone, and in any case both are optional and not yet relied on by anyone so far as I know. But I've always liked the idea of Dubin Core metadata, so...onward! </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Finally, there was an XSLT stylesheet to adjust. I use a </FONT><A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/longFeed.xml"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>transform</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> of my </FONT><A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/rss.xml"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>default feed</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> to produce my </FONT><A href="http://www.w3.org/2000/06/webdata/xslt?xslfile=http%3A%2F%2Fweblog.infoworld.com%2Fudell%2Fgems%2FlongFeed.xml&amp;xmlfile=http%3A%2F%2Fweblog.infoworld.com%2Fudell%2Frss.xml&amp;transform=Submit"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>alternate long-descriptions feed</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. The stylesheet&nbsp;needed namespace declarations for &lt;dc:&gt; and &lt;content:&gt;. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Everything seems to check out. I unsubscribed and resubscribed my channels in Radio without any trouble. (Of course if any problems arise in other systems, please holler.) Should RSS readers ever start to care about &lt;content:encoded&gt; (or some equivalent), I can drop the second feed. In the best of all possible worlds, such readers would then offer users three choices based on the default feed: </FONT></P> <OL> <LI> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>The full content of each item.</FONT></P> <LI> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>The truncations suggested by the author of the feed.</FONT></P> <LI> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>An alternate truncation performed on the full content by the RSS reader.</FONT></P></LI></OL> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Meanwhile, both flavors are available as separate feeds that work with existing RSS readers. </FONT></P> 20020906T22:01:44 RSS Rael Dornfest reflects on the past, present, and future of RSS http://namespaces2.test/udell/2002/09/06.html#a402 <FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Here are some of Rael's&nbsp;musings&nbsp;on the week's flurry of RSS discussion:</FONT> <b>...</b> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Here are some of Rael's&nbsp;musings&nbsp;on the week's flurry of RSS discussion:</FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Do I wish we could go back to 0.91 and further, moving all those imperfect elements into namespaces? Why sure. Who wouldn't? But the sheer number of tools and applications that rely upon what's in there (for better or for worse) makes that impossible -- not without considerable breakage and retooling. Am I content to have that simply be optional water under the bridge? Sure thing.</FONT></EM></P> <P><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>That said, I am concerned to see last minute stuffing of the core with elements that have yet to prove their worth. Of course they're all optional again, but that's just so much more baggage (remember skipHours?) to carry around. When the idea has been </FONT></EM><A href="http://backend.userland.com/rss094#roadmap"><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>put forth</FONT></EM></A><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> to go the route of XML-Namespaces, why clutter a room with boxes from the basement just before building a shelving unit. Would I like to see those elements pushed out into namespaces? Sure thing. More toothpaste out of the tube? No more than some of the fiddling with </FONT></EM><A href="http://www.raelity.org/archives/2002/06/04#auto_discovery_of_rss_cont"><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>RSS autodiscovery</FONT></EM></A><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> in its first few days of existence. [</FONT></EM><A href="http://www.oreillynet.com/~rael/"><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>raelity bytes</FONT></EM></A><EM><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>]</FONT></EM></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>It's great to see this discussion opening up. As I've mentioned to a few people this week, Google's </FONT><A href="http://www.rss.org/mission.htm"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>first result</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> for "mission of RSS" is eerie:</FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2><EM>The truth is one but can have plural manifestations. This plurality need not be in conflict with one another; it can be cooperative and complementary. To understand, appreciate and realize the unity in a tremendous vortex of diversities, should be the humanity's goal of life.</EM></FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <P dir=ltr><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>How does Google <EM>do</EM> that?</FONT></P> <P dir=ltr>&nbsp;</P> 20020906T09:04:04 RSS CxO bloggers http://namespaces2.test/udell/2002/09/06.html#a401 <FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>I'm particularly interested in C[ETI]Os who are using blogs to communicate goals, strategies, and perspectives. So I've added a feature to this blog that helps keep track of these CxO bloggers. </FONT> <b>...</b> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>I'm particularly interested in C[ETI]Os who are using blogs to communicate goals, strategies, and perspectives. So I've added a feature to this blog that helps keep track of these CxO bloggers. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>This was also a chance to put </FONT><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0104487/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Marc Barrot's</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> excellent </FONT><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0104487/categories/activeRenderer/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>activeRenderer</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>&nbsp;to work. Although&nbsp;his blog is called SLAM (for Site Logging and Monitoring),&nbsp;and is nominally about system administration, Marc has become deeply fascinated with outline processing and has built some great tools to extend Radio's outlining capabilities.</FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>The&nbsp;"</FONT><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0104487/outlines/aR/activeRenderer.html"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>how this works</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>" page, linked to from instances of activeRenderer, documents how to use it. Briefly, here's what I did:</FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>1.&nbsp;Wrote the outline in </FONT><A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/cxoBlogs.jpg"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Radio's outliner</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>, where it's easy to maintain.</FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>2.&nbsp;Saved it to the /radio/www/gems directory as cxoBlogs.opml, which in turn causes it to upstream to </FONT><A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/cxoBlogs.opml"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2><a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/cxoBlogs.opml">http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/cxoBlogs.opml</a></FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>.</FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>3. Added the following to my homepage template:</FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>&nbsp; &nbsp;&lt;p&gt;&lt;%activeRendererHeader () %&gt;<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&lt;%activeRoll (<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;"</FONT><A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/cxoBlogs.opml"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2><a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/cxoBlogs.opml">http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/cxoBlogs.opml</a></FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>", <BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; title:"CxO bloggers" )%&gt;<BR>&nbsp; &lt;/p&gt;</FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Nice! Thanks, Marc! This is an ideal way to manage a chunk of structured data compactly and elegantly.</FONT></P> 20020906T08:32:16 Radio The mission of RSS http://namespaces2.test/udell/2002/09/05.html#a398 <FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Sam Ruby </FONT><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0101679/2002/09/04.html#a796"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>asks</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>: "<I>Jon - if I read your suggestion correctly, are you suggesting that we give up on ever converging?</I>" </FONT> <b>...</b> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Sam Ruby </FONT><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0101679/2002/09/04.html#a796"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>asks</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>: "<I>Jon - if I read your suggestion correctly, are you suggesting that we give up on ever converging?</I>" </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>The context for my answer is this message from </FONT><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>S&eacute;bastien Paquet</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>, which I'm quoting with permission. </FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE><I> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Hi Jon, </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Following your post on the barriers to weblog/RSS uptake in scientific and other communities, I thought I'd send you a note, as much of my recent work focuses on pushing weblogs in research. I'm a computer science researcher, on the social informatics side, and my weblog is about the evolution of scholarly communication. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>First, there is a growing number of blogs by researchers. If these pioneers can organize (which I'm tring to help them do), become more visible and evangelize, they'll be much more effective than outsiders at getting others to jump on the blogtrain. For a sample, follow the links in </FONT><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/2002/07/30.html#a14"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>this post</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Second, the primary obstacles to widespread blogging are cultural, not technological. Perhaps the biggest is that (regrettably) researchers are not used to sharing widely information about work in progress. A relevant note is </FONT><A href="http://www.looselycoupled.com/blog/2002_08_04_lc.htm#85316804"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>here</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Third, I'm also interested in the general issue of why certain professions pick up blogging more easily than others. See </FONT><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/2002/08/28.html#a236"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>here</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> and </FONT><A href="http://www2.iro.umontreal.ca/~paquetse/cgi-bin/om.cgi?Weblogs_By_Profession"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>here</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>I'd be very interested to know more about your views/lessons learned on how to promote blogging and syndication, if you find time to write them up in your blog or elsewhere. </FONT></P></I></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Here are reasons why S&eacute;bastien thinks blogging and research culture should naturally go together: </FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE><I> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2></FONT> <OL> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Scholars value knowledge. They have a lot of it to manage and track. </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>A scholar's professional survival depends on name recognition. A K-log can help provide visibility and recognition. </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Scholars are used to writing; most of them can write well. </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Scholars are geographically disparate. They need to nurture relationships with people that they seldom meet in person. </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Scholars need to interlink in a person-to-person fashion (see </FONT><A href="http://www2.iro.umontreal.ca/~paquetse/cgi-bin/om.cgi?Interlinktual"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Interlinktual</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>) </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Scholars already rely heavily on interpersonal trust and direct communication to determine what new stuff is worth looking at. Such filtering is one of the central functions weblog communities excel at. </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>For many scholars, the best collaborations come about when they find someone who shares their values and goals (this is argued e.g. in section 3 of Phil Agre's excellent </FONT><A href="http://www2.iro.umontreal.ca/~paquetse/cgi-bin/om.cgi?Networking_On_The_Network"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Networking on the Network</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>). The personal output that is reflected in one's weblog makes it much easier to check for such a match than work that is published through other channels. </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Scholars recognize the value of serendipity. Serendipity can come pretty quickly through weblogging; see </FONT><A href="http://www2.iro.umontreal.ca/~paquetse/cgi-bin/om.cgi?Manufactured_Serendipity"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Manufactured Serendipity</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Every scholar must strive to be a knowledge hub&nbsp;in his niche, and an expert in related areas. A K-log is a good medium for this, as it is a way of letting knowledge flow through you while adding your personal spin. </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Scholars pride themselves on being independent thinkers. K-logs epitomize independent thought. </FONT></LI></OL></I></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Here are reasons why S&eacute;bastien thinks blogging has failed to become a research nexus: </FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE><I> <OL> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>It takes time. </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>"The technology is not well-established and tested at this point." </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Many people don't like being among the first ones doing something. </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Not all scholars are used to the Web and hypertext. </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Shyness and fear of public mistakes. Many scholars won't write unless they have to. They may especially be reluctant to publicly expose ideas that they haven't tested. </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Fear that someone else will pick up their ideas and work them out before they do. </FONT></LI></OL></I></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>I agree with both sets of reasons. I find it fascinating that nowhere in the second list do these objections appear: </FONT></P> <OL> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>RSS is becoming too complex. It needs to remain simple, human-readable and -writable. </FONT> <LI><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>RSS is too monolithic. It needs modular extensibility.</FONT></LI></OL> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>In fact both objections are valid. But neither is preventing RSS from achieving what I take to be its primary mission, which is to supercharge professional communication in the many disciplines that it has yet to penetrate. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>RSS .94 looks fine to me. So does RSS 1.0 (with its .91 module). So do </FONT><A href="http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/?flav=rss2"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>other</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> </FONT><A href="http://www.syndic8.com/~wkearney/blogs/syndic8/archives/000017.html"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>proposals</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. The interoperable core shared by all these is what matters most, and since all are related by simple transformation, I regard them as being the same from the perspective of the primary mission. For users who don't understand or have access to transformation technologies, though, these different manifestations of the core are confusing and may account for the perception that "the technology is not well-established." </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Few have argued for metadata as long and (I hope) persuasively as me. So I hope that qualifies me to say: it's not the first thing that matters here. If the primary mission is achieved, extensible metadata <I>will</I> matter more -- though perhaps less than we geeks like to imagine. I see RSS .9x as a basic syndication format, and RSS 1.0 as a framework for advanced metadata enrichment. My conclusions at this point are as follows: </FONT></P> <OL> <LI> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>The two functions are different enough to warrant different names.</FONT></P> <LI> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Use the name RSS to denote the interoperable core.</FONT></P> <LI> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Have optional namespaces in the RSS core for basic/general/ad-hoc metadata extension.</FONT></P> <LI> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Use XSS (or whatever) for advanced/domain-specific/mature metadata syndication. But when an XSS site serves up a feed to a client looking for the interoperable core, call that feed RSS.</FONT></P></LI></OL> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>If you carve the world up this way, RSS is what the vast majority of sites will produce, and the vast majority of users will consume. XSS will be written and read by a small minority of sites and users who are involved in really interesting and important stuff. It will be mildly confusing to see a site offering both flavors. But the proliferation of iconography can perhaps be offset by streamlining elsewhere. With LINK REL="subscriptions" and </FONT><A href="http://diveintomark.org/projects/autorss/radio.html"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>bookmarklets</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> for the one-click-subscribe function, for example, we could cut down on this kind of clutter: </FONT></P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2><IMG src="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/images/xml.gif"> <IMG src="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/images/xmlCoffeeCup.gif"> <IMG src="http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/images/xml_pill.gif"> </FONT> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>So, would differentiating an RSS from an XSS mean giving up on convergence? I guess so. I don't see convergence as a problem to be solved for its own sake. Nor do I see convergence as a solution to S&eacute;bastien's much more fundamental problem. </FONT></P> 20020905T09:43:17 RSS Tom Yager's blog debuts http://namespaces2.test/udell/2002/09/04.html#a397 <FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Back in my BYTE days, the editorial staff used to congregate on a text-mode conferencing system called BIX. Some incredibly sharp wits held forth there, none sharper than Tom Yager. Happily, he is now my colleague again here at InfoWorld, where he holds forth as a columnist and ace analyst/reviewer. It always bugged me that so little of our BIX chatter was able to surface to a wider audience. Well, times change, and I'm delighted to say that Tom recently started a </FONT><A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/yager/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>weblog</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. </FONT> <b>...</b> <IMG src="http://ctoforum.infoworld.com/foruminfo/speakerpics/yager.jpg" align=right> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Back in my BYTE days, the editorial staff used to congregate on a text-mode conferencing system called BIX. Some incredibly sharp wits held forth there, none sharper than Tom Yager. Happily, he is now my colleague again here at InfoWorld, where he holds forth as a columnist and ace analyst/reviewer. It always bugged me that so little of our BIX chatter was able to surface to a wider audience. Well, times change, and I'm delighted to say that Tom recently started a </FONT><A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/yager/"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>weblog</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Between BYTE and InfoWorld, our paths intertwingled in an odd way. When I first knew Tom he was already a versatile (and astonishingly articulate) developer with boatloads of experience in all kinds of technical areas. Among other things, he became the architect and maven of BYTE's multimedia lab, and put himself way ahead of the curve on topics like desktop video. He was also, by his own admission, a Unix zealot, at a time when I was more comfortable with OS/2 and NT. A few years later, things reversed. Tom was earning a living cranking out IIS/ASP applications. I had just completed a major development project on a purely open source foundation -- Linux/Apache/mod_perl -- and was as zealous about this no-Microsoft solution as Tom had become about his all-MS stuff. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Nowadays, we both seem to have lost our religion and come to a pragmatic view of the costs, benefits, and uses of various technologies. I loved Tom's </FONT><A href="http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/05/27/020527opestrat.xml"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Losing my Religion</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> column, and the phrase he coins in it -- technology attachment disorder (TAD). His first blog entry, a parable about HVAC (as in Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning, not HTML/VRML Automatic Compilation), further expands on one of the unfortunate consequences of TAD: </FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE><I><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>At the last Microsoft PDC, I walked by someone wearing a T-shirt that said, "Here's a pointer: real programmers use C++." My AC ordeal brought to mind the ridiculous, unjustified caste distinctions between blue and white collar workers, and the similarly baseless distinctions separating high tech workers. I think that shirt bothered me so much because I used to buy into that kind of snobbery. I don't remember what got me past that--it was something like my business with the AC. I do know that the fewer people I look down on, the more I like myself and my work. [</FONT><A href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/yager/2002/08/18.html"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Yager Radio</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>] </FONT></I></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Well said. And...welcome! </FONT></P> 20020904T19:09:36 RSS olive branches http://namespaces2.test/udell/2002/09/04.html#a396 <FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>In the summer of 2000 I wrote a report that explored the uses of Internet-style groupware for scientific collaboration. In </FONT><A href="http://udell.roninhouse.com/GroupwareReport.html#111"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Section 3</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> I tried to show an audience of scientists how the two-way information flow of blogging and RSS newsfeed aggregation could support and accelerate the collaboration that is at the heart of the scientific enterprise. </FONT> <b>...</b> <A href="http://www.geocities.com/pastormikeobbc/olivebrancPic.JPG"><IMG src="http://www.geocities.com/pastormikeobbc/olivebrancPic.JPG" align=right border=0></A> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>In the summer of 2000 I wrote a report that explored the uses of Internet-style groupware for scientific collaboration. In </FONT><A href="http://udell.roninhouse.com/GroupwareReport.html#111"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Section 3</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> I tried to show an audience of scientists how the two-way information flow of blogging and RSS newsfeed aggregation could support and accelerate the collaboration that is at the heart of the scientific enterprise. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Two years later, I'd make the same argument. And I'd probably have to. Despite massive uptake of blogging in certain circles, I don't see evidence that it has made much of a dent in scientific communities. The same is true, I think, in many other professions. Blogging seems huge to those of us engaged in it, and in important ways it is. Culturally, it represents a style of communication that is genuinely new. Technically, it may be the most popular application of XML. But blogging is still a drop in the ocean of email. It's far from ubiquitous, and at the ETech conference, both </FONT><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0101679/2002/05/16.html#a488"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Sam Ruby</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> and I were surprised to see how little-understood RSS feeds were even among experienced bloggers. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>From a fifty-thousand-foot perspective, the squabble over RSS formats looks like a tempest in a teapot. Neither the simplicity of RSS .9x nor the extensibility of RSS 1.0 matters to someone who has yet to experience the "virtuous cycle" that is only recently being discovered by so many -- for example, </FONT><A href="http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/dbox/spoutlet.aspx?key=2002-07-10T01:05-08:00"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>Don Box</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>: </FONT></P> <BLOCKQUOTE><I> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>While spending my evening with RSS, I had two epiphanies: </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>The connection between blogging and RSS is deep. WS-IL is the closest we have to RSS in the web service space. </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>With respect to the first observation, the cycle looks something like this: </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>while (true) { <BR>ScanRSSFeeds(); <BR>RantAboutStuffYouSawFromRSSFeeds(); <BR>ExposeYourRantsViaRSS(); <BR>} </FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>What an amazingly virtuous cycle! </FONT></P></I></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>I submit that we're still at the beginning of the RSS adoption curve. To insiders, it seems as though the squabble has gone on forever, but I don't think outsiders see that. Up to a point, we can put </FONT><A href="http://blogspace.com/rss/tools"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>band-aids</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> on the wound, but it does need to be healed -- and I don't think it's too late. It's encouraging to see Dave Winer's statement in favor of </FONT><A href="http://backend.userland.com/rss094#roadmap"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>namespaces and modular extensibility</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> in the RSS 0.94 roadmap. Will the RSS 1.0 camp offer an </FONT><A href="http://rsswhys.weblogger.com/discuss/msgReader$51"><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2>olive branch</FONT></A><FONT face=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif size=2> of its own? I hope so. </FONT></P> 20020904T09:59:32 RSS