From what I can see in the documentation and sample source code, the GWT produces the client-side code and an extended servlet. This requires a J2EE container (e.g. Tomcat) to be running on the web server, in order to deploy the application to the Web.
However, most consumer hosting providers offer LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) style packages rather than J2EE, so I'm curious to know if the GWT offers any support for this as the server-side AJAX component? If not, and if it relies on a J2EE-powered server, it's surely missing a trick.
The article notes "Web 2.0" is an ambiguous term, but uses it nonetheless. I'm curious - what exactly is Web 2.0? Is there an RFC for it? Do the W3C have anything to do with it? Can you get a job as a Web 2.0 developer? I suspect the answer to all of these questions is "no," and that we're looking at another media mountain born of a technology molehill.
One press article (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/ma r2006/tc20060313_860688.htm?campaign_id=topStories _ssi_5) talks about Web 2.0 as a collection of technologies and techniques, which leaves me wondering what defines these techniques as "Web 2.0" besides their current popularity. The buzz around AJAX makes some sense as it is having a genuine impact on the usability of websites. However, does a website become part of the "Web 2.0" simply because it has a sprinkling of asynchronous JavaScript and XML? Or does it need a tagging system, or WYSIWYG editing (or whatever other technique is currently in vogue)?
We've had this issue before. Remember "DHTML," which was simply a buzzword referring to the combination of JavaScript, CSS and HTML? It was great for the IT publishing industry who could release a whole new raft of books on these technologies, but for the rest of us it was just another confusing ambiguity.
Rebranding combinations of old techniques merely creates a bubble of hype that confuses management, developers and users. If you've ever uttered the words "Web 2.0," then shame on you!
Whilst I think Google is probably the best search engine, and deserves to be the default option on IE7, I think it could be a concern if every browser on every platform defaulted to a Google search. I'd like to explain an issue that concerns me regarding the "monopoly on search."
Google has done marvellous things for the user and developer communities. I'd hate to sound ungrateful. However, as a web-developer I have been stung more than once by the "Google Sandbox" effect - whereby newly-registered domains are held off the index (except for contrived, specific keyword searches like the exact domain name) for months. One of my sites has still not been indexed after eight months despite the fact it has many incoming links from related sites with reasonable PageRank, and despite the fact that it follows Google's content recommendations to the letter.
The Google Sandbox effect (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_Effect) has not been evident in MSN search (or other engines) for my sites, but because they have such a tiny market share, they don't drive any business to me. I would welcome a little competition in the search market, purely so that controversial decisions made by the engines do not have such a broad impact on the web.
This is horribly counterproductive for the open-source movement. Consider how this campaign will appear to the media. All that is certain is that stats for Apache hosting will be artificially high because of this campaign. And moreover, the article presents no hard evidence that MS is carrying out any manipulation themselves.
I think it's likely that humans will de-evolve the desirable characteristics we have gained from tens of thousands of natural selection.
Modern society, particularly in more developed nations, artificially supports the weak. I can speak for the UK, where people with disabilities and others who are simply too lazy to work receive copious state benefits to support their lives. The benefits increase when they have children. Therefore, we are positively encouraging the weak and needy to have offspring which themselves are likely to have the same characteristics. A cold statement, maybe, but technically accurate.
Society and the state impose a burden of taxes, regulation, cultural expectations etc on those who can work - particularly those who excel. Therefore, through stress-related illness and work-life imbalance (no time for kids etc), those who have desirable characteristics are having fewer offspring.
So, by supporting the weak and over-working the strong, I believe society is straining evolution, could even be reversing it.
I agree with the author. Firefox deserves to rise above IE6, but the use of guerilla marketing tactics reflects badly on its community.
A year ago Firefox developer Blake Ross encouraged the FF community to file comments [and positive votes] on the feedback section of CNET's Download.com website. This allowed Firefox to rise to first place on CNET's list of most popular software. Ballot stuffing, anyone?
In itself, these instances are not serious issues. However, the community should bear in mind the long-term effect of over-hyping Firefox. The media loves to build things up, and then later break them down. In the case of Firefox, the media will simply have a larger bubble to burst.
PHP 5 does indeed have more "complete" support for object orientation. The new XML/SOAP libraries are also a welcome addition.
However, IMHO it is still lacking one crucial feature - application scope for variables. Most of the competing platforms (ASP, JSP etc) allow a website to operate with shared memory (between sessions), but in PHP this is a glaring omission.
Try creating an AJAX chatroom in PHP. You'll find yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place - either messing around with cumbersome file I/O or hammering the DB with lots of connections and requests.
Now try it in JSP, for example - simply put a couple of objects into application shared memory and the task is accomplished elegantly.
You could say that when Microsoft paddles in OSS water (e.g. SourceSafe vs CVS/Subversion) it has the market disadvantage of charging consumers for products that are free elsewhere.
And when OSS teams paddle in Microsoft's water (e.g. Firefox vs IE) they have the disadvantage of competing against a hugely entrenched market leader
Maybe each party should stick to where they are most profitable, although innovation would suffer as a result.
It's an interesting idea, but surely a more elegant solution would involve a cross-platform (eg. Java) front-end to files that are simply zipped, like a.jar
There is no need for a proprietary format or client to gain this functionality. After all, we're trying to get away from closed-source PDFs, right?
When ID cards were being trialed, The Scotsman ran a survey and found:
"61 per cent of people favour ID cards but 28 per cent are opposed. Around 16 per cent said they would participate in "civil disobedience" and six per cent said they would go to jail rather than carry one."
I wonder whether that six percent represent thieves, fraudsters, illegal immigrants and co? It's obviously not in their best interests to be identified.
The argument against compulsory ID cards is based largely on the fear of eroding civil liberties and basic human rights. There is also a lot of anti-EU feeling coming out of the woodwork. This all seems rather ironic. Preservation of basic human rights and civil liberties are at the heart of EU policy - a fact which is often used by the tabloids to poke fun at their legislation.
To those that fear a 1984-style totalitarian police state, home secretary Charles Clarke notes "[the UK Identity Cards Bill] does not make it compulsory to carry a card, nor does it give powers to the police to stop individuals and demand to see their card. Neither will the database which accompanies the card hold information such as medical records, religion or political beliefs."
Therefore it seems to me that fears of 'abolition of our way of life' are slightly over-blown. Of course, the possibility of forgery is a valid concern, but let's put things in perspective here. It's going to be significantly more difficult to forge a biometric ID card than a traditional passport or driving license, both of which are currently used to identify people.
I'd rather have my identity stored in one, secure location rather than spread over credit cards, my driving license, passport, company ID card and suchlike. I'd rather that the Government had my biometric data so my alibi could be proved if I was ever wrongly accused of a crime. I'd rather benefit fraud, election fraud, human trafficking and illegal immigration were reduced. Did you know that over £50 million a year is lost on benefit fraud due to the use of false identities?
Personally, I don't mind having my fingerprint and iris scanned. I'll be glad for everyone to have such scans. Criminals would be identified with more accuracy than ever before. Since I'm not planning any murders or robberies, it really doesn't bother me.
I have nothing to fear from people knowing who I am. Do you?
Hans: "They tried to outdo Firefox tab browsing with a feature call Quick tab which shows thumbnail view of all open tabs in a single window."
Very "diminishing" phrasing. It would be more appropriate to say was that they have outdone Firefox tabbed browsing.
Why can't we be happy that MS has implemented a cutting edge UI feature, rather than slating them for "trying to outdo" our favourite OSS mascot browser. We see so much hullaballoo about each new Mozilla Firefox feature, but when Microsoft comes up with anything vaguely cool, Slashdotters always respond with defensive claims that it's copy-cat innovation, or that OSS product x is a better implementation, or that it's an example of "scope creep" or whatever.
Thumbnail browsing has been seen before in foxposé, but that's no reason to slate MS for implementing it. How often do you see people slating Mozilla for cloning tabbed browsing from Opera? Or cloning the information bar from IE?
kamapuaa: There isn't the mechanisms to revert changes
This is a standard MediaWiki and as such there is a mechanism to revert changes. Simply click the "History" tab, click the date of the most recent correct version, and then click "Edit." The following warning will be shown: "WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be lost."
Click save and you've reverted the changes since the historic version.
Note that your reversion joins the edit history and may itself be reverted by others.
For the record I think the wiki is a great idea. It's the next evolutionary step from blogging, and fosters a more open, transparent environment for discussion
Several commenters have suggested that moderation would be a better approach, but I believe this would be fundamentally flawed in the context of a wiki. Changes to a wiki must be synchronous - i.e. each change occurs after an another, in order to keep a linear history of versions.
If there is a moderation queue, it means articles will be locked pending moderation of the last change. If an edit were to occur during this period it would have to be automatically merged into the versions awaiting moderation. This would be near impossible.
Good god - I read that article and what a waster! Should we boycott Firefox 2.0 because it might not support CSS3, or might not be invulnerable. What a ridiculous stance, suggesting that we shouldl boycott a product that hasn't even been released yet.
dch24: "If Mozilla wants to slander Microsoft, they're just reflecting the opinions of the people"
So if I want to commit slander (considered a crime in my country) then I just need to find some people who agree with what I'm saying, and then it's okay?
dch24: "Years of working with broken MSDN CD's, missing online documentation" blah blah
You obviously haven't used any of Microsoft's current products, which are very well documented. I'm working in ASP.NET at work at the moment, and MSDN is simply awesome.
dch24: "Sorry if the extensions are not as well designed as the browser."
Don't scapegoat the extensions, like other Firefox browser advocates regularly do. If you guys will vaunt the extensions when promoting Firefox, you can't wipe your hands of them at the first sign of a problem. Besides, what I was actually referring to was the chameleon API of the browser, regularly causing headaches for extension developers.
dch24: "I love Firefox updates!"
Heh, bless. You tried the latest version of Windows Update, as built into WinXP SP2? It uses idle bandwidth to download updates, installs them reliably behind the scenes (although you can get the detail if you want it), and sets the benchmark for auto update.
dch24: "the developers for Firefox are allowed to contribute even when they have a job"
Yep, but how much spare time have they got left, after a full-time job?
dch24: "If you use Firefox, though I'm betting you use IE, then can you tell me what security holes, or which missing parts of CSS2 we are waiting for?"
The delays in the latest Firefox release are well documented.
This is simply more evidence that the open-source model simply doesn't work in the real world.
Hopefully Mozilla will now begin to adopt a bit of corporate professionality akin to Microsoft. The Mozilla Corporation can begin by:
1. ending the anti-MS slander contained within their various marketing campaigns. 2. fully documenting their APIs, to the high standards of Microsofts MSDN. 3. settling on a standard for Firefox APIs to avoid breaking existing extensions on every major Firefox release. 4. invest in a software update system that actually works. 5. pay their developers a salary, which might discourage them from defecting to other companies 6. get back on track with the delayed Firefox releases
I've already made my application to Google, suggesting the Mozilla Foundation (on the 'Other' option) as a possible supervisor -- if they get back to me maybe I'll suggest Gnome as an alternative.
I have just created a Firefox extension for my dissertation, and I'd like to make it open-source. The extension is a toolbar that spiders opinions on commercial websites from friends and friends-of-friends (a social network is built). It gives the user a trust rating for the site currently being browsed.
Slashdot Mirror
"Shock! - New Microsoft Product Criticised on Slashdot.org"
"Bubble 2.0," anyone?
From what I can see in the documentation and sample source code, the GWT produces the client-side code and an extended servlet. This requires a J2EE container (e.g. Tomcat) to be running on the web server, in order to deploy the application to the Web.
However, most consumer hosting providers offer LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) style packages rather than J2EE, so I'm curious to know if the GWT offers any support for this as the server-side AJAX component? If not, and if it relies on a J2EE-powered server, it's surely missing a trick.
The article notes "Web 2.0" is an ambiguous term, but uses it nonetheless. I'm curious - what exactly is Web 2.0? Is there an RFC for it? Do the W3C have anything to do with it? Can you get a job as a Web 2.0 developer? I suspect the answer to all of these questions is "no," and that we're looking at another media mountain born of a technology molehill.
a r2006/tc20060313_860688.htm?campaign_id=topStories _ssi_5) talks about Web 2.0 as a collection of technologies and techniques, which leaves me wondering what defines these techniques as "Web 2.0" besides their current popularity. The buzz around AJAX makes some sense as it is having a genuine impact on the usability of websites. However, does a website become part of the "Web 2.0" simply because it has a sprinkling of asynchronous JavaScript and XML? Or does it need a tagging system, or WYSIWYG editing (or whatever other technique is currently in vogue)?
One press article (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/m
We've had this issue before. Remember "DHTML," which was simply a buzzword referring to the combination of JavaScript, CSS and HTML? It was great for the IT publishing industry who could release a whole new raft of books on these technologies, but for the rest of us it was just another confusing ambiguity.
Rebranding combinations of old techniques merely creates a bubble of hype that confuses management, developers and users. If you've ever uttered the words "Web 2.0," then shame on you!
A glaring omission from the summary and from the article text:
. html
The 0-60 time of the X1 is 2.8 seconds, according to the discussion on
http://priuschat.com/lofiversion/index.php/t15170
Whilst I think Google is probably the best search engine, and deserves to be the default option on IE7, I think it could be a concern if every browser on every platform defaulted to a Google search. I'd like to explain an issue that concerns me regarding the "monopoly on search."
Google has done marvellous things for the user and developer communities. I'd hate to sound ungrateful. However, as a web-developer I have been stung more than once by the "Google Sandbox" effect - whereby newly-registered domains are held off the index (except for contrived, specific keyword searches like the exact domain name) for months. One of my sites has still not been indexed after eight months despite the fact it has many incoming links from related sites with reasonable PageRank, and despite the fact that it follows Google's content recommendations to the letter.
The Google Sandbox effect (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_Effect) has not been evident in MSN search (or other engines) for my sites, but because they have such a tiny market share, they don't drive any business to me. I would welcome a little competition in the search market, purely so that controversial decisions made by the engines do not have such a broad impact on the web.
This is horribly counterproductive for the open-source movement. Consider how this campaign will appear to the media. All that is certain is that stats for Apache hosting will be artificially high because of this campaign. And moreover, the article presents no hard evidence that MS is carrying out any manipulation themselves.
I think it's likely that humans will de-evolve the desirable characteristics we have gained from tens of thousands of natural selection.
Modern society, particularly in more developed nations, artificially supports the weak. I can speak for the UK, where people with disabilities and others who are simply too lazy to work receive copious state benefits to support their lives. The benefits increase when they have children. Therefore, we are positively encouraging the weak and needy to have offspring which themselves are likely to have the same characteristics. A cold statement, maybe, but technically accurate.
Society and the state impose a burden of taxes, regulation, cultural expectations etc on those who can work - particularly those who excel. Therefore, through stress-related illness and work-life imbalance (no time for kids etc), those who have desirable characteristics are having fewer offspring.
So, by supporting the weak and over-working the strong, I believe society is straining evolution, could even be reversing it.
I agree with the author. Firefox deserves to rise above IE6, but the use of guerilla marketing tactics reflects badly on its community.
A year ago Firefox developer Blake Ross encouraged the FF community to file comments [and positive votes] on the feedback section of CNET's Download.com website. This allowed Firefox to rise to first place on CNET's list of most popular software. Ballot stuffing, anyone?
In itself, these instances are not serious issues. However, the community should bear in mind the long-term effect of over-hyping Firefox. The media loves to build things up, and then later break them down. In the case of Firefox, the media will simply have a larger bubble to burst.
PHP 5 does indeed have more "complete" support for object orientation. The new XML/SOAP libraries are also a welcome addition.
However, IMHO it is still lacking one crucial feature - application scope for variables. Most of the competing platforms (ASP, JSP etc) allow a website to operate with shared memory (between sessions), but in PHP this is a glaring omission.
Try creating an AJAX chatroom in PHP. You'll find yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place - either messing around with cumbersome file I/O or hammering the DB with lots of connections and requests.
Now try it in JSP, for example - simply put a couple of objects into application shared memory and the task is accomplished elegantly.
I love coding PHP but I miss application scope.
You could say that when Microsoft paddles in OSS water (e.g. SourceSafe vs CVS/Subversion) it has the market disadvantage of charging consumers for products that are free elsewhere.
And when OSS teams paddle in Microsoft's water (e.g. Firefox vs IE) they have the disadvantage of competing against a hugely entrenched market leader
Maybe each party should stick to where they are most profitable, although innovation would suffer as a result.
It's an interesting idea, but surely a more elegant solution would involve a cross-platform (eg. Java) front-end to files that are simply zipped, like a .jar
There is no need for a proprietary format or client to gain this functionality. After all, we're trying to get away from closed-source PDFs, right?
I wonder whether that six percent represent thieves, fraudsters, illegal immigrants and co? It's obviously not in their best interests to be identified.
The argument against compulsory ID cards is based largely on the fear of eroding civil liberties and basic human rights. There is also a lot of anti-EU feeling coming out of the woodwork. This all seems rather ironic. Preservation of basic human rights and civil liberties are at the heart of EU policy - a fact which is often used by the tabloids to poke fun at their legislation.
To those that fear a 1984-style totalitarian police state, home secretary Charles Clarke notes "[the UK Identity Cards Bill] does not make it compulsory to carry a card, nor does it give powers to the police to stop individuals and demand to see their card. Neither will the database which accompanies the card hold information such as medical records, religion or political beliefs."
Therefore it seems to me that fears of 'abolition of our way of life' are slightly over-blown. Of course, the possibility of forgery is a valid concern, but let's put things in perspective here. It's going to be significantly more difficult to forge a biometric ID card than a traditional passport or driving license, both of which are currently used to identify people.
I'd rather have my identity stored in one, secure location rather than spread over credit cards, my driving license, passport, company ID card and suchlike. I'd rather that the Government had my biometric data so my alibi could be proved if I was ever wrongly accused of a crime. I'd rather benefit fraud, election fraud, human trafficking and illegal immigration were reduced. Did you know that over £50 million a year is lost on benefit fraud due to the use of false identities?
Personally, I don't mind having my fingerprint and iris scanned. I'll be glad for everyone to have such scans. Criminals would be identified with more accuracy than ever before. Since I'm not planning any murders or robberies, it really doesn't bother me.
I have nothing to fear from people knowing who I am. Do you?
The anti-Christian points made were spot on. I don't understand what point you are trying to make?
Hans: "They tried to outdo Firefox tab browsing with a feature call Quick tab which shows thumbnail view of all open tabs in a single window."
Very "diminishing" phrasing. It would be more appropriate to say was that they have outdone Firefox tabbed browsing.
Why can't we be happy that MS has implemented a cutting edge UI feature, rather than slating them for "trying to outdo" our favourite OSS mascot browser. We see so much hullaballoo about each new Mozilla Firefox feature, but when Microsoft comes up with anything vaguely cool, Slashdotters always respond with defensive claims that it's copy-cat innovation, or that OSS product x is a better implementation, or that it's an example of "scope creep" or whatever.
Thumbnail browsing has been seen before in foxposé, but that's no reason to slate MS for implementing it. How often do you see people slating Mozilla for cloning tabbed browsing from Opera? Or cloning the information bar from IE?
kamapuaa: There isn't the mechanisms to revert changes
This is a standard MediaWiki and as such there is a mechanism to revert changes. Simply click the "History" tab, click the date of the most recent correct version, and then click "Edit." The following warning will be shown: "WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be lost."
Click save and you've reverted the changes since the historic version.
Note that your reversion joins the edit history and may itself be reverted by others.
This link to the actual wiki was omitted from the original post:
a ge
http://vote.peteashdown.org/wiki/index.php/Main_P
For the record I think the wiki is a great idea. It's the next evolutionary step from blogging, and fosters a more open, transparent environment for discussion
Several commenters have suggested that moderation would be a better approach, but I believe this would be fundamentally flawed in the context of a wiki. Changes to a wiki must be synchronous - i.e. each change occurs after an another, in order to keep a linear history of versions.
If there is a moderation queue, it means articles will be locked pending moderation of the last change. If an edit were to occur during this period it would have to be automatically merged into the versions awaiting moderation. This would be near impossible.
"Megafauna" - what a horrible newspeak term!
What constitutes Megafauna? "Superfelines," "Hyperbovines" and "Ultracanines" perhaps?
Good god - I read that article and what a waster! Should we boycott Firefox 2.0 because it might not support CSS3, or might not be invulnerable. What a ridiculous stance, suggesting that we shouldl boycott a product that hasn't even been released yet.
dch24: "If Mozilla wants to slander Microsoft, they're just reflecting the opinions of the people"
So if I want to commit slander (considered a crime in my country) then I just need to find some people who agree with what I'm saying, and then it's okay?
dch24: "Years of working with broken MSDN CD's, missing online documentation" blah blah
You obviously haven't used any of Microsoft's current products, which are very well documented. I'm working in ASP.NET at work at the moment, and MSDN is simply awesome.
dch24: "Sorry if the extensions are not as well designed as the browser."
Don't scapegoat the extensions, like other Firefox browser advocates regularly do. If you guys will vaunt the extensions when promoting Firefox, you can't wipe your hands of them at the first sign of a problem. Besides, what I was actually referring to was the chameleon API of the browser, regularly causing headaches for extension developers.
dch24: "I love Firefox updates!"
Heh, bless. You tried the latest version of Windows Update, as built into WinXP SP2? It uses idle bandwidth to download updates, installs them reliably behind the scenes (although you can get the detail if you want it), and sets the benchmark for auto update.
dch24: "the developers for Firefox are allowed to contribute even when they have a job"
Yep, but how much spare time have they got left, after a full-time job?
dch24: "If you use Firefox, though I'm betting you use IE, then can you tell me what security holes, or which missing parts of CSS2 we are waiting for?"
The delays in the latest Firefox release are well documented.
This is simply more evidence that the open-source model simply doesn't work in the real world.
Hopefully Mozilla will now begin to adopt a bit of corporate professionality akin to Microsoft. The Mozilla Corporation can begin by:
1. ending the anti-MS slander contained within their various marketing campaigns.
2. fully documenting their APIs, to the high standards of Microsofts MSDN.
3. settling on a standard for Firefox APIs to avoid breaking existing extensions on every major Firefox release.
4. invest in a software update system that actually works.
5. pay their developers a salary, which might discourage them from defecting to other companies
6. get back on track with the delayed Firefox releases
Do you mean the unprecedented application?
I've already made my application to Google, suggesting the Mozilla Foundation (on the 'Other' option) as a possible supervisor -- if they get back to me maybe I'll suggest Gnome as an alternative.
Get over your anti-corporation hang-ups for a moment won't you?
Sorry! You missed the $4500 because of a mere syntax error:
echo $hello world
should be:
echo $hello . $world;
(assuming you're writing your project in a PHP-like language, of course)
Another useless piece of detective work by The Eternal Pedant
Hey Chris,
Great to hear about this project.
I have just created a Firefox extension for my dissertation, and I'd like to make it open-source. The extension is a toolbar that spiders opinions on commercial websites from friends and friends-of-friends (a social network is built). It gives the user a trust rating for the site currently being browsed.
Would this project qualify?
Chris