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   RE: [xml-dev] The Best Technologies Don't Win

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From the article cited: "A 12-month turnaround doesn't cut it in this
technical landscape.."

If they don't do what the crowd wants, they move too slow.  If they go
fast enough to meet the demand of the press and the 'web', they make
mistakes and are told they aren't listening.  Internet Time is a hoax.
"Worse is better.." is wrong.  The web is mediocre and claims virtue for
that.  It can be from the perspective of a very large number of average
users and applications in a short period.  If we assume a universal
"they" (what the phrase "The Web" means), it is.  If we step away from
that bit of arrogant humility, we realize that local cases make it
imperative to respect different approaches because at some point, a user
will be in that locale and design arrogance will make them fail or even
get them killed.  

The Internet is not a hardened system and for some applications, that
makes it dangerous.  The web?  The web isn't anything but a convenient
abstraction.  As with any abstraction, it is as useful or dangerous as
the methods grouped under it.  "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Walt Kelly (Pogo) from a 1970 Earth Day poster.

And so it goes.  The question one might want to ask is if the best don't
win, why?  Do you want them to?  Is it really a game with only one
winner?  Or is it a long low energy navigation of a resonant space
mapped as different dynamic orbits of options that eventually take the
payload to the goal with ease and little loss except time?

Standards should not be written, committees should not be formed,
working groups should be small affairs with little or no formal liaisons
until the open specification and the open source are BOTH ready for
inspection.  The problem is starting the process with an assumption that
the products of that process are fait accomplis and trying to eliminate
competitors by shouting them down.  Ego and impatience combined are
shallow arrogance.  Deep arrogance comes of being successful once and
assuming that makes one powerful instead of humble in the face of what
might just be dumb luck.

Web services may be the right approach given other choices.  REST is the
only approach given no choices.  With schemas, one has choices.  We can
learn to choose wisely or we can shout them down.

Low energy transfer is as good a model for communications as it is for
orbital transport. It is known for patience and making small changes.
It is cool because it trades time for energy.

Ask the Italians and the French this morning about keeping cool, or any
matador that bowed to the crowd with his back to the horns of the
challenge.

len  


From: juanrgonzaleza@canonicalscience.com
[mailto:juanrgonzaleza@canonicalscience.com] 

Eric van der Vlist said:
> So what? The Web doesn't belong to the W3C.

And do not forget that often the w3c has been acussed of they are not
really listening to the web.

[http://news.com.com/2100-1023-834990.html]





 

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