News and views from a software developer's perspective
Wednesday, January 15, 2003Dan Gillmor: "Swipe a CD from a record store and you'll get arrested. But when Congress authorizes the entertainment industry to steal from you -- well, that's the American way." [Scripting News]
I wonder if we will ever have an XML vocabulary for email. The mark-up should be simple, and separation of structure and presentation should not be a consideration. Email doesn't have structure. But simple presentation styles can make communication more effective. The author should be able to choose font size, color, and style. He should be able to indicate flowed text and preformatted text. He should be able to create numbered and bulleted lists.
I was just looking at the draft for XHTML 2.0. The plans are for XHTML 2.0 to break backwards compatibility with XHTML 1.1. In fact, it seems as though the working group has no concern at all for compatibility, although familiarity seems to be a concern. (What I mean is, they apparently feel that XHTML 2.0 should be sufficiently similar to HTML that writers will find it familiar.)
Overall, I am pleased with the draft. Compatibility is not really so much of an issue if you have cascading style sheets.
The working group seems to be really striving for separation of structure and presentation. That's a good thing. But I hope not too much of a good thing. Take the <i> tag, for example. It can be replaced by <em>. But sometimes you really do need the <i> tag. The titles of books are italicized, but the <em> tag really doesn't apply, because you are not emphasizing the title, just following the convention of italicizing it. Of course you could do this with the <span> tag, but the <span> tag is really just a presentation tag. The most natural thing to do is to invent your own tag, say <btitle>, then use a style sheet rule to indicate that it should be italicized.
Hitting P2P Users Where It Hurts
If spoofing can effectively shut down P2P file trading, maybe copy protection won't be necessary. Then, you could rip a song from a CD and share it with a relative or friend, or easily move it from one device to another, or back it up. Sounds like a good compromise to me: give up large scale trading among strangers, but allow small scale trading among acquaintances.
Wired News: ...the entertainment industry conglomerates continue to feed an us vs. them, Robin Hood-type reaction among many consumers, especially young people...
Blogs refine enterprise focus
BUILDING ON THE success of Weblogs for personal Web publishing, enterprises are starting to tap into blogs to streamline specific business processes such as intelligence gathering or to augment traditional content-and knowledge-management technologies.
There is a market for collaborative tools. User interface and security is everything in this market. Make it secure and easy and natural to use.