Internet Alchemy

From Nick Gall’s position paper on an upcoming W3C workshop on a Web of Services for Enterprise Computing:

Actually, the W3C XML Protocol Working Group uses a much more accurate name for WS-*-style Web Services: XML Protocol Services. If WS-* “Web Services” had originally been “XML Middleware Services” (XMS-*), I doubt the W3C would have ever gotten directly involved with standardizing such an architecture. It would have left such work to the middleware vendors, and at best coordinated with them in their use of HTTP, XML, etc. Instead the W3C would have focused on protocols and formats such as RSS, Atom, Microformats, and now GData that are the best examples of how to enable one software agent to interact with another (aka A2A integration).

It is my position that the W3C should extricate itself from further direct work on SOAP, WDSL, or any other WS-* specifications and redirect its resources into evangelizing and standardizing identifiers, formats, and protocols that exemplify Web architectural principles. This includes educating enterprise application architects how to design “applications” that are “native” web applications.

Nick is a VP at Gartner…

Just in case you thought our historical records were a true account of our past here’s a list of famous people appearing twice in the same census. And these are just the famous people. How many of our not-so-famous families appear multiple times?

Something that hadn’t occurred to me, but in retrospect seems obvious now:

It’s interesting to note here the connection between REST and functional programming and the meaning of the word ‘function’. For most developers a function is a sequence of statements that do some ‘work.’ But for the few developers using a functional programming language a function is a well defined relationship between an input and output state. RESTful systems manifest the latter, ‘functional’ meaning of the word ‘function’. You might describe such a system as ‘B:HTTP(A)’ where a given HTTP request acts as a function and is applied to system state A. The application of this function in turn generates a new system state, B. In the end, as Duncan points out, many of benefits that RESTful systems have over SOAP are analagous to the advantages that functional languages have over procedural languages.

This is from a blog called discipline and punish which I’ve not come across before. Lots of interesting stuff there on OpenID, and a rant on syntax obsession that fits well with a current Talisian discussion.

Over on O’Reilly Radar there’s an interesting post about what it means to be an open platform (in the context of iPhone vs Treo). Some key points (which I think I agree with):

If you think about the original PC architecture, the openness was via the expansion ports and the commodity nature of the components used on the motherboard. It engendered whole new industries for adding functionality (e.g. video and sound cards) and scaring the platform provider (networking – who needs mainframes and minis?). But we’re all pretty much entrenched in that PC architecture. IBM of course lost control of the market to the clones and their attempt to close up the architecture failed miserably (MCA – micro channel architecture in the PS/2). But they did reap a lot of licence fees from the clone makers during that time (via patents on the technology) and I suspect they would still be doing so if they hadn’t tried to close the market up, thereby alienating the clone makers and forcing them to devise new alternate architectures.

Open platforms can be scary for the provider but if you hold your nerve, as we are with our open platform at Talis, then the rewards can be immense.

This looks interesting, a proposal from Roy Fielding to set up a new Apache project:

The Web Architecture Lab would be a work area for specifying and experimenting with the interrelated shared agreements (protocols) that make the World Wide Web a happy place. The goal is to produce a central storage for Web protocol evolution, including both existing Web protocols and new ones, that Apache developers can refer to, comment on, prototype alternatives, and provide examples and test cases.

Historically the development of the web has been split between the IETF and the W3C with some mixed results, most notably the confusion over registration of media types developed by the W3C. Is this the start of a unified web standardisation process?

Also, while perusing the Apache Labs page I came across Noggit a fast JSON streaming parser and serializer for Java.

The five things meme has made its way to me courtesy of Leigh Dodds. I thought I’d break one of my 7 habits to respond with 5 things you probably don’t know about me:

1. I love playing board games and since my son became old enough to join in properly I’ve had lots of fun scouring ebay for games from my childhood like Buccaneer, Dr Who and Rail Baron as well as more recent ones like Settlers and Atlantis.
2. I was one of the first 200 Microsoft Certified Solution Developers back in the early nineties and got an engraved glass plaque for my efforts, plus a case of wine from my then employer.
3. I’m an avid Sci-Fi fan but can’t abide any modern Sci-Fi television series such all the Star Trek spinoffs, Stargate, Quantum Leap etc. I absolutely refuse to watch them.
4. I have been vegetarian for 16 years yet my favourite TV chef is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a British chef famous for eating and making use of every part of an animal and infamous for serving placenta pâté at a christening.
5. My ancestry is a mix of French, Mexican, Irish and Geordie

In return, I’m tagging some Talisians: Nad, Rob, Paul, Sam and Justin