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Archive for December, 2005

22 Dec 2005

by Noel

The Implications of the Internet

If you are a civilian like me (an anthropologist, that is, without much technical savvy), it’s a little mystifying. Will Internet 2.0 change everything or just some things? Is this a revolutionary moment or an evolutionary one? Is everything I know wrong, or just this, that and the other thing? Is this 2.0h! or merely 2.0. …

Here are three models that sort out the possibilities for me.

Read it, it’s good stuff.

My take: these changes will take place, but it will take another generation, that grows up with the Internet, for them to be fully realised.

Posted in General | Comments Off on The Implications of the Internet

22 Dec 2005

by Noel

Printf in AJAX? Sorry, that’s not debugging.

This post is one in a continuing series where we internally debate the merits of the over-hyped promise of AJAX…

Debugging Ajax Requests in Prototype:

How do we debug our Ajax applications? The Rails Weenie has taken the Ajax Responder feature in Prototype…

I’d like to remind Noel that the distance of the Atlantic and business of the Christmas holidays are not going to keep me from pointing out that AJAX is an immature and dangerous platform to build a business on. Yes, I’m glad that GMail is there… and I suppose the Yahoo! Mail beta. However, these are fragile technologies to build upon.

How do we debug things written using the Prototype framework?printf. I mean, I’m glad that with AJAX and Rails I can whip something up quickly that “just works.” However, it doesn’t “just have test cases,” or “just get internationalized”, or “just stand up under load.” They’re rapid-prototyping tools, certainly nothing more. AJAX breaks usability standards, pushes data and computation to an unreliable substrate (the client’s web browser), and as the post above provides some evidence for, there are no good debugging or tracing tools available for developers working in heterogeneous browser environments in Javascript.

So, Noel, riddle me this: why should developers be willing to take eight steps backwards and be shafted with printf as their primary debugging tool when working with AJAX?

Posted in Javascript, Web development | Comments Off on Printf in AJAX? Sorry, that’s not debugging.

12 Dec 2005

by Noel

Population of the World

cartogram of the world by population gives some perspective. This green and pleasant isle really is quite crowded. Canada, on the other hand, is somewhat devoid of human inhabitants.

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6 Dec 2005

by Noel

Happy Birthday!

A great big Happy Birthday! to Geoff, who turns 21 again today!

Posted in Fun, General | Comments Off on Happy Birthday!