XML-RPC, in particular, is very much in the Unix spirit. It's deliberately minimalist but nevertheless quite powerful, offering a way for the vast majority of RPC applications that can get by on passing around boolean/integer/float/string datatypes to do their thing in a way that is lightweight and easy to to understand and monitor. This simple type ontology acts as a valuable check on interface complexity.#
It's very true, my design goal for my whole 50+ year career has been to factor my code so well so it was as clean as Unix is, from top to bottom#
The virtue of relentless factoring is you can build higher if each layer of the stack lets through the functionality that's needed, and no more. Ideally there should be one way of doing something. and it should work pretty well. #
I realized that the web, RSS and podcasting are also a Unix-like things. #
Because they can be made to do anything, but are simple, not a lot to understand.#
But -- there's been this huge proliferation of languages and frameworks, and incredibly complex and underspecified formats. #
Meanwhile core functions like storage combined with identity for end users, has not been implemented, because of course if the users had their own networked data independent of any platform vendor there would be no lockin. that's 2024 version of the cathedral, to follow your analogy.#
Anyway, seeing you here made me think of this, I've wanted to say this to you for a long to you and now I have. ;-)#
You know those obnoxious sites that pop up dialogs when they think you're about to leave, asking you to subscribe to their email newsletter? Well that won't do for Scripting News readers who are a discerning lot, very loyal, but that wouldn't last long if I did rude stuff like that. So here I am at the bottom of the page quietly encouraging you to sign up for the nightly email. It's got everything from the previous day on Scripting, plus the contents of the linkblog and who knows what else we'll get in there. People really love it. I wish I had done it sooner. And every email has an unsub link so if you want to get out, you can, easily -- no questions asked, and no follow-ups. Go ahead and do it, you won't be sorry! :-)