The best software frameworks are apps that do things users care about.

Back in the 80s it was dBASE and then FoxBase. 1-2-3 had a macro language, it was weak, but it was widely used because 1-2-3 was so popular with users.

Today it's WordPress.

And Slack is doing interesting things with their APIs.

Twitter too, but that got kind of muddied-up.

The best one of all of course is JavaScript, a very bizarre language in a totally underpowered environment that reaches into every nook and cranny of the modern world. It's an awful environment, you'd never design one that worked that way, but the draw of all those users makes up for its sins.

Flickr had a wonderful API, still does, but Stewart left the house before it could really blossom as a community thing. See Slack, above.

Chatting with Brent Schlender the other day, I commented that Steve Jobs' politics and mine are exactly opposite. Jobs was an elitist, all his products were as Doc said in 1997, works of art, to be appreciated for their aesthetics. I am a populist and a plumber. Interesting that this dimension of software is largely unexplored. I hope our species survives long enough to study it.

BTW, when ESR saw XML-RPC he said it was just like Unix. Nicest thing anyone could ever say. When I learned Unix in the mid-late 70s, and studied the source code, I aspired to someday write code like that. So well factored it reads like its own documentation.

Today, I'm mainly concerned with getting some outside-the-silos flow going with people I like to read. If we get (back) there, I will consider it a victory.