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Kurt Cagle's OpenSVG Keynote

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the magnitude-with-direction dept.

Metaphorically writes "Kurt Cagle has posted a summary of his keynote speech from the SVG Open 2005. Inspiring for an SVG enthusiast, informative for any geek. He covers a lot of ground on XML and the next generation of GUI. It connects a lot of technologies that people might otherwise not totally grasp. If you haven't been following the development of XForms, E4X, SVG and XAML then this is a great way to catch up."

3 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. MirrorDot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    MirrorDot of the Keynote

  2. Re:Que? No Explaino! by AKAImBatman · · Score: 3, Informative

    What is this new technology

    SVG? New? Not that is news! SVG 1.1 was ratified on the 14th of January, 2003. Most SVG users either view the files in the Adobe Plugin, or translate to raster images for vector charting and the like. (I actually had a pretty cool 3D pie chart program for awhile there. SVG came out of one end, translated by Batik, then viewed as a PNG.)

    why should I care about it

    You shouldn't. It's just technology marching on. If you need to do vector graphics, you'll find it far more up-to-date and better supported than PostScript. If you don't need to do Vector graphics (or don't even know what vector graphics ARE) then you definitely don't care.

    As a computer expert of 20 years and programmer of 15 years, how will this effect me?

    You'll need a new bullet-point on your resume in a few years?

    Will I have to learn totally new things, or does it build on the old ones?

    You know XML? You know PostScript? How about ECMAScript? Yes? You're good to go then.

    Who owns the patents to this new technology?

    It's older than the hills technology. I dunno, maybe my great grandmother had a patent at some point, but there are none now. (Unless someone invents a stupid one like "Method for storing Vector graphics in XML." Hmm... maybe it is patented.)

    Will Microsoft release their own version of it and crush everyone?

    Microsoft Internet Explorer (Exploder in my book) needs the Adobe plugin. AFAIK, Microsoft is mostly ignoring it.

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  3. the future looks bright by michaelbuddy · · Score: 3, Informative

    What is so cool about SVG is talked about in this keynote. SVG, is vector graphics AND text, AND placed raster images, AND animation described in an open, easy to read format.

    One advantage is that you can design a webpage the same way you design a printed piece. Where you have just as much control over it. MS explorer requires an adobe plugin to display it, similarly to how it displays flash. Firefox is going to display SVG natively in the 1.1 browser (actually already does with the deerpark alphas.

    The code is easily visible like HTML. The desktops that use SVG for the gui, I don't know much about, but it's fantastic. Nice icons, or buttons or any visual element that is smaller in file size, breaks out of the square we are used to, and the elements can be enlarged or reduced and still be rendered beautifully.

    check out inkscape if you want to experiment with svg, or the open clipart library to see some cool examples. of SVG.

    http://inkscape.org/
    http://openclipart.org/

    Here's what mozilla is doing with SVG:
    http://www.mozilla.org/projects/svg/

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