imagine if this weren't something as fringe-useful (yes, it is useful to hearing impaired and a token number of folks who desperately want to hear web pages or use TellMe) as VoiceXML... imagine if it were... SMTP (yeah, I know, IETF not W3C).
what if the SMTP spec was approved and made an official "standard" with Micro$oft or $un claiming ownership? Would e-mail be the most widely used Net application? Would we be back in the days of LANs supporting 10 different e-mail standards?
VoiceXML *is* cool (I occasionaly use TellMe to get movie times/locations), but what's the point of making it a "standard" if I'll have to license my software to the firm with the highet paid lawyers?
we should give it all up if this is going to be the wave of the future for the W3C. Why not just develop and license apps to recognise and display docs written in QuarkXPress tags.
better yet, let's all just switch the web to PDF and wait a year for it to d/l @ 56K.
hat's off to payware "standards"...
maybe i'll just go back to FTP and plain text unless someone manages to patent that.
The MP3 features are nice, but it's great to finally have a full keyboard that doesn't require a stylus to operate (ala Palm-ish phones). The only real, cool feature IMHO. I love my Nomad, don't play handheld games much and not interested in being in Nokia's "club".
There does need to be some significant improvements in *power* options if we are supposed to be convinced to be electronically tethered 24/7. I doubt the 2hrs claim will be the norm for most folks.
All the next rev needs is Java, integrated GPS, color screen and old Nintendo/Atari emulation. Now *that* will be a great... ahh... err... phone?!
the keyword-generated, dynamic RSS/XML/whatever-you-need feeds are an interesting option, but the 'normal' categories are decent quality and updated regularly.
I'll be curious as to how it holds up to being left overnight in a car in January (up in the northeast US) and whether it still works or just has a horrible wait-to-be-used time as the Palm's do.
it looks like it has been said already, but 15-year-olds (note that i'm 2x that) tend to not have a great deal of clout with local, state or federal representatives (it might be the skateboards *:^).
however, some 15-year-olds do manage to get through adolescence and make the effort to go out and vote when they are of legal age - a fact that the politicians see to neglect.
to be honest, i'd trust my daughter to make more informed and wise decisions than most of the people i work with.
in reality, unless the collective, "slashdot-we" manage to create a bribe..er...fund to contribute to campaigns, real (to us) issues will never get real solutions.
alot of the other comments on this one bring up very good points.
an additional one is that php/perl tend to be "anything goes" environments. as a reference, i've played with PHP-Nuke and have installed and regularly use IMP (the horde.org awesome webmail package). i also test drove the latest slash *:^) as an example, if you take a look at the code for Nuke, you'll see... well... chaos.
servlets/jsp's have an entire community around them that propogate ideas like "model-view-controller" and code vs presentation. there are standards and debates with alot of critical eyes on the end-result code. this can be intimidating for "getting-started" users.
php/perl encourages (perhaps "allows" is more appropriate) the opposite - code it quick, put anything anywhere and watch the web pages fly by (literally, since both apache modules are very good). if you've hacked a quick weblog or gallery-viewer, you'll have a ton of folks screaming to use it (go freshmeat and sourceforge!).
probably the biggest "problem" with getting java server stuff into the open source sommunity and into the hands of those "screaming" masses of people is that the developers wind up actually coding for dollars rather than coding for the community. there are a ton of commercial java server implementations with large-company support backings (e.g. JRun, WebLogic). PHP has...?
plus, the learning curve for java (jsp/servlets/et al) is also (IMHO) much steeper. it's really alot harder to develop a redistributable weblog in java than it is to in php/perl.
for php/perl, you need to only compile in the packages and run one server (not even a compile in some os distros). for tomcat/jrun/servletexec, you've got to get apache + a plug-in that needs configuration, then the java server itself, all comfortably working together (if you want to do it "right"). then *try* to find a cheap hoster! (actually, check out the latest ed of java dev journal for references to some hosting refs, some not too bad).
truth-be-told, i find myself always doing a mix of the three. i use perl where i need alof of personal control and flexibility, php when i need to get "off the shelf" components up quickly (esp to prototype or show examples), and java to do calculated, larger, structured projects.
fundamentally, tho, perl/php have captured the spirits of a larger number of visible, devoted net-developers because of their very nature. java, while awesome, popular and a force to be reckoned with seemed to be raised to the level it has out of industry necessity (JSP's came about primarily to combat the dreaded MS ASP's).
from download to install and http access (on solaris 8/sparc) in 5 minutes!
servlet filters will be very useful (been using a similar feature with atg dynamo for a while now). in fact, tomcat has a number of very useful features that are normally found in the pay-per-use java servers. when the new apache module (to tie the ws in with the js) is done, this will be a kick-butt combination!
anyone not already in the java server game should give this new beast a try. the sample application (structure and ant build config file) makes getting started snap!
don't forget to d/l CVS to keep your projects straight!
it's amazing how the universe Tolkien created can capture the imagination of both the young and [not so] old.
i'm reading the LOTR series with my 9-year old daughter and am amazed at how much she retains and how the characters and scenes are painted in her imagination. when a passage captivates her, it seems to paint a picture more vivid than any of her dvds and manages to pull her in even more. it's great having this as something to share as she grows up.
i'm hoping (a) we get to the end before 2001-12-19 and (b) the movie doesn't ruin the Tolkien universe for her. (hollywood managed to destroy POTA, so I'm not too hopeful for LOTR).
Slashdot Mirror
imagine if this weren't something as fringe-useful (yes, it is useful to hearing impaired and a token number of folks who desperately want to hear web pages or use TellMe) as VoiceXML... imagine if it were... SMTP (yeah, I know, IETF not W3C).
what if the SMTP spec was approved and made an official "standard" with Micro$oft or $un claiming ownership? Would e-mail be the most widely used Net application? Would we be back in the days of LANs supporting 10 different e-mail standards?
VoiceXML *is* cool (I occasionaly use TellMe to get movie times/locations), but what's the point of making it a "standard" if I'll have to license my software to the firm with the highet paid lawyers?
we should give it all up if this is going to be the wave of the future for the W3C. Why not just develop and license apps to recognise and display docs written in QuarkXPress tags.
better yet, let's all just switch the web to PDF and wait a year for it to d/l @ 56K.
hat's off to payware "standards"...
maybe i'll just go back to FTP and plain text unless someone manages to patent that.
The MP3 features are nice, but it's great to finally have a full keyboard that doesn't require a stylus to operate (ala Palm-ish phones). The only real, cool feature IMHO. I love my Nomad, don't play handheld games much and not interested in being in Nokia's "club".
... ahh ... err ... phone?!
There does need to be some significant improvements in *power* options if we are supposed to be convinced to be electronically tethered 24/7. I doubt the 2hrs claim will be the norm for most folks.
All the next rev needs is Java, integrated GPS, color screen and old Nintendo/Atari emulation. Now *that* will be a great
definitely check moreover.com...
the keyword-generated, dynamic RSS/XML/whatever-you-need feeds are an interesting option, but the 'normal' categories are decent quality and updated regularly.
I'll be curious as to how it holds up to being left overnight in a car in January (up in the northeast US) and whether it still works or just has a horrible wait-to-be-used time as the Palm's do.
it looks like it has been said already, but 15-year-olds (note that i'm 2x that) tend to not have a great deal of clout with local, state or federal representatives (it might be the skateboards *:^).
however, some 15-year-olds do manage to get through adolescence and make the effort to go out and vote when they are of legal age - a fact that the politicians see to neglect.
to be honest, i'd trust my daughter to make more informed and wise decisions than most of the people i work with.
in reality, unless the collective, "slashdot-we" manage to create a bribe..er...fund to contribute to campaigns, real (to us) issues will never get real solutions.
alot of the other comments on this one bring up very good points.
an additional one is that php/perl tend to be "anything goes" environments. as a reference, i've played with PHP-Nuke and have installed and regularly use IMP (the horde.org awesome webmail package). i also test drove the latest slash *:^) as an example, if you take a look at the code for Nuke, you'll see... well... chaos.
servlets/jsp's have an entire community around them that propogate ideas like "model-view-controller" and code vs presentation. there are standards and debates with alot of critical eyes on the end-result code. this can be intimidating for "getting-started" users.
php/perl encourages (perhaps "allows" is more appropriate) the opposite - code it quick, put anything anywhere and watch the web pages fly by (literally, since both apache modules are very good). if you've hacked a quick weblog or gallery-viewer, you'll have a ton of folks screaming to use it (go freshmeat and sourceforge!).
probably the biggest "problem" with getting java server stuff into the open source sommunity and into the hands of those "screaming" masses of people is that the developers wind up actually coding for dollars rather than coding for the community. there are a ton of commercial java server implementations with large-company support backings (e.g. JRun, WebLogic). PHP has...?
plus, the learning curve for java (jsp/servlets/et al) is also (IMHO) much steeper. it's really alot harder to develop a redistributable weblog in java than it is to in php/perl.
for php/perl, you need to only compile in the packages and run one server (not even a compile in some os distros). for tomcat/jrun/servletexec, you've got to get apache + a plug-in that needs configuration, then the java server itself, all comfortably working together (if you want to do it "right"). then *try* to find a cheap hoster! (actually, check out the latest ed of java dev journal for references to some hosting refs, some not too bad).
truth-be-told, i find myself always doing a mix of the three. i use perl where i need alof of personal control and flexibility, php when i need to get "off the shelf" components up quickly (esp to prototype or show examples), and java to do calculated, larger, structured projects.
fundamentally, tho, perl/php have captured the spirits of a larger number of visible, devoted net-developers because of their very nature. java, while awesome, popular and a force to be reckoned with seemed to be raised to the level it has out of industry necessity (JSP's came about primarily to combat the dreaded MS ASP's).
yep. the 'apes' just didn't live up to the hype.
kudos to the jakarta team!
from download to install and http access (on solaris 8/sparc) in 5 minutes!
servlet filters will be very useful (been using a similar feature with atg dynamo for a while now). in fact, tomcat has a number of very useful features that are normally found in the pay-per-use java servers. when the new apache module (to tie the ws in with the js) is done, this will be a kick-butt combination!
anyone not already in the java server game should give this new beast a try. the sample application (structure and ant build config file) makes getting started snap!
don't forget to d/l CVS to keep your projects straight!
i'm reading the LOTR series with my 9-year old daughter and am amazed at how much she retains and how the characters and scenes are painted in her imagination. when a passage captivates her, it seems to paint a picture more vivid than any of her dvds and manages to pull her in even more. it's great having this as something to share as she grows up.
i'm hoping (a) we get to the end before 2001-12-19 and (b) the movie doesn't ruin the Tolkien universe for her. (hollywood managed to destroy POTA, so I'm not too hopeful for LOTR).
keep reading, weakethics...