RE: [xml-dev] 2007 Predictions

["Len Bullard" <cbullard@hiwaay.net>]

Nope.  Tim Bray.  See Ongoing.  He needs persistent link clusters.  A bit of
XLink in the current parlance; a bit of Hytime of old.  Mainly though, a
topical link set to cover the problems of link rot.  (There actually isn't a
solution; just 404.  It isn't a solution.  It is the admission there is no
solution.)

Some simple things are too simple when you finally need something more
complex.  Strange how that works.

Nah.  The web won because it was free.  When the web won, it couldn't touch
a desktop for productivity.  It was a big old gray and black page sitting
there blinkin' at ya.  It has gotten better and now it is almost as
productive a production tool as a desktop app... that is until you need to
do something complex and the connections go bad or the server farm goes dark
or the griefers with reefers show up to mox the show.

If I had to choose?  I'd ditch my web browser.  I need the word processor to
get paying work done.  I had a library before I had a word processor and I
know how to use it.  I had e-mail before I had a web browser and I knew how
to use it.  

Storage?  I had a network before I had a web browser.  It wasn't as big but
it was connected to the Internet and a bit harder to use.  Most of the stuff
claimed by the web predates the web.  People didn't know how to use it.  

Keep trying, Elliotte. :-)  There is one thing I didn't have although others
did.

len

From: Elliotte Harold [mailto:elharo@metalab.unc.edu] 
 
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.