Joe Gregorio
Stone Age Developers Wanted
I look back at the first web apps I ever put together and feel a deep sense of shame. I knew so little about HTTP and HTML that I made quite a few bad decisions. Luckily these were deployed behind firewalls in the early days of the web when intranets were a buzzword and not standard practice.
I've learned a lot since then. Apparently if I wanted to stay in the stone age of web development I should have taken a job at Microsoft. [Full-Disclosure] MS web designers -- "What Security Initiative?" [via Simon Fell]
Not So Stone Age Standards Improved
Meanwhile it looks like Ian Hickson and friends have been busy and launched the Web Hypertext Applications Technology Working Group. What Working Group? Heh, at least they haven't lost their sense of humor. They have setup shop outside the W3C after being shot down at a recent meeting. I wish them the best of luck on moving Web Forms 2.0 and their other specifications forward. I am not surprised to see this happening and I dearly hope that this serves as a bit of a wake up call to the leadership at the W3C.
Tools
rfcdiff is tool to compare two versions of an internet-draft, and as output produce a diff in one of several formats, including a side-by-side HTML diff. It also appears to be written entirely in bash. This is something I plan on applying to the AtomAPI drafts, which by the way I now have help with.
Help
Robert Sayre is now a co-editor for the AtomAPI, which is extremely cool.
Defacto
Joel Spolsky's latest article How Microsoft Lost the API War has some interesting insights into the politics and decision making behind the doors at Redmond. I have always been amazed that Microsoft saw the browser as competition for Windows as early as it did. It is not often that an entrenced company even sees a disruptive technology as a threat at all, never mind when it is still in its nascent stages. It also points out the futility of Microsoft's attempts to hold the web at bay, besides legislating the competition out of existence there really isn't a good way for a company to fight a disruptive technology.
Circular
And just to close the loop and end up almost back at the beginning Joel provides his list of things he wants to see the WHAT Working Group working on.