Re: [xml-dev] 2007 Predictions

[Elliotte Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>]

Len Bullard wrote:

> The globally shared information space does not exist because of the browser.
> It exists because of the largely shared and limited dimensionality of
> URI-based linking which even Tim Bray is admitting some years later is
> inadequate to create a persistent reliable address space, but hey, better
> late than never.  

Did you mean Tim Berners-Lee here? If so, I don't think he ever denied 
it. His genius was that you didn't need a "persistent reliable address 
space". His invention was 404. That's why the Web succeeded when other 
hypertext systems failed.

> It exists because the hypertext pioneers who used advanced
> means were pushed aside by amateurs using impoverished means, and it
> triumphed over the masses the same way Bill Haley and The Comets triumphed
> over Cole Porter.  

The analogy is unconvincing. The Web won because it was better.


> The web has now been fielded long enough that we have by popular acclamation
> and marketing machination had two whole versions of it.  The new one is
> almost as good as the desktops of twenty years ago.  

No. It is much, much better than the desktops of twenty years ago. Which 
would you rather give up? Your word processor or your Web browser? Your 
hard drive or your network connection?

Desktop apps are better at some things and web apps are better at some 
things, but the web is better at more of the more important things. A 
disconnected PC is a far more limited tool than a web browser without 
local storage or a printer.


-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo@metalab.unc.edu
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
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