Jason May's Weblog

Fri, 01 Nov 2002 17:26:03 GMT

Terrific article by Matthew Thomas on what he calls "cruft". I distinguish this sort of thing from "code cruft", which is the junk that accumulates over time in source code when you don't refactor ruthlessly.

All of the examples that Matthew uses are things that we could easily fix in our software. So why don't we?

Mon, 14 Oct 2002 04:12:34 GMT

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it...He who receives an idea from me, receives instructions himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should be spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature ... Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
--Thomas Jefferson

From a letter to Isaac McPherson, written on 13 August, 1813 (4 years after Jefferson's presidency). Full letter online at The Founders' Constitution.

Tue, 08 Oct 2002 04:11:08 GMT

Leo - editor/outliner for literate programming.

Installed. Not quite sure what to make of this. Time to dust off a mini-project to experiment with.

Fri, 13 Sep 2002 06:45:56 GMT

Clay Shirky: Broadcast Institutions, Community Values

Brief, but right on. eBay has clearly created a community: participants communicate directly with one another, unfiltered by a central entity. eBay doesn't "own" the community, yet it continues to create value for eBay. And "shallow" describes well the eBay technology that enables the community.

Payment providers like Billpoint or Paypal don't naturally create communities. While individuals can engage in direct payment transactions with one another, the payment provider is a mandatory intermediary. I think this is true for financial institutions in general. "Digital cash" could possibly cause a community to develop, but all the attempts to get this working have failed.

Wed, 04 Sep 2002 18:36:35 GMT

Blogads. This is not the answer to revenue generation from weblogs. As blogging becomes more mainstream, more people will read them through aggregators than directly. Advertising or any other revenue channel will have to support this. I don't see how the banner ad model will work through aggregators. Perhaps by delivering only a synopsis through your feed, and requiring visitors to come to the site and view the ad in order to see the full article. I'm more inclined towards subscription and micropayment models, but the financial component of these hasn't been worked out yet.

Mon, 02 Sep 2002 22:17:59 GMT

A nice discussion of guaranteed message delivery semantics. On the Erlang FAQ, of all places.

Mon, 02 Sep 2002 22:12:34 GMT

Architectural Principles of the World Wide Web

Appears to be the latest official statement along the lines of these comments by TBL.

Mon, 02 Sep 2002 20:14:03 GMT

Sam Ruby asks whether the Google API violates idempotent-GET (which isn't the same thing as GET-must-not-have-side-effects, btw).

I don't think this violates the rules. Limitations on number of requests per user fall into the category of access controls. The real resource for a search response is a list of matching results, but you can always get an exception response back from any request. "You're over your quota" is a perfectly legitimate exception. A standard HTTP response would be appropriate for this, perhaps 403.

Mon, 02 Sep 2002 19:31:18 GMT

Joel is right on regarding Groove. I've installed the preview edition, and it's very nice, but I can't see how it will really make my life better. I can imagine that there might be some applications for the Groove platform that will be compelling. But not if every user has to purchase a Groove license, then a license for the application. Give the platform away for free, and charge royalties to application developers. Give away the razor, and get revenue from third parties delivering compatible blades.

Mon, 02 Sep 2002 04:59:21 GMT

Clean Flicks. Covered on CNN. What a marvelous idea. I expect that in general I wouldn't appreciate the "cleaned" versions, but I think that this sort of thing should be encouraged. With a caveat: Any third-party editing should be clearly documented in an appropriate fashion, e.g. in a segment at the end of the film, with clear explanation of the edits made and the justification for doing so.

Mon, 02 Sep 2002 04:41:28 GMT

MS Killed Java. Rubbish. If Java died, it was suicide. The Java language platform was not suitable for running client applications in 1997, and it still isn't today. "Write once, run anywhere" was a flawed concept from the beginning. Microsoft was certainly guilty of looking after their own interests in an overly-zealous fashion, but they don't deserve the blame for Java's failings.