DaveNet 1998 Review: Software & The Net
Java came in like a bull in a china shop. 2/27/98.
If you just thought it thru, you realized push was just email. Instead of creating new protocols, CDF, DRP and OSD, push could have built on SMTP and POP. It would have been a no-brainer, it would have bought them so much compatibility, and since Push was so closely linked to Java, it could have given Java a great email client and server, which it still lacks. 2/27/98.
Then one day the company that started it all says Java Java Java. It's neat! OK. You go out and get a Java book. Huh? What's this? But everyone's so excited. There must be something wrong with me. 4/6/98.
Web browsers are not leading edge in 1998. If history is any guide, they are not going to change from this point on, any more than spreadsheets have changed since the first one shipped in 1980. I'll eat my hat if web browsers work substantially differently in ten years. 5/19/98.
Are Microsoft's productivity apps in a cul-de-sac? Can they go anywhere interesting from here? If there's room for new collaborative versions of the Office apps, at the top-level, will they work differently from their pre-Internet counterparts? Are spreadsheets and word processors enabling surfaces for collaborative work, or is something else needed? No matter what, Microsoft is in a race with everyone else to figure out what's going on here and to then implement it. 5/21/98.
Saddam Hussein would have a copy of PGP. A beautiful blonde Israeli intelligence officer and her best friend, a Japanese web developer, with seven systems and a pager who wears a suit and tie in his bedroom, like a Blues Brother. They'd be on the net using a Director simulation of what chat will look like in Y2K. There's the love angle. Like John and Yoko, but turned around and net-based. They'd lose contact at the crucial moment, and the movie would end with the world safe and them in love. 6/14/98.
Some situations, like this one, transcend competition. It's in every vendor's interest to side with the customers here, put competitive issues aside, and work together to solve this problem quickly. 7/1/98.
The bottom line, security holes happen. I don't believe people who say Unix or Mac systems aren't subject to holes. No one knows. Programmers are human, we make mistakes, software has bugs, and servers have holes. The measure of our quality is how open we are about our mistakes, when we take the high road and let people know, even if it makes us look human, we're doing the right thing. I hope the press tunes into this. 7/3/98.
A procedure call is the name of a procedure, its parameters, and the result it returns. 7/14/98.
The Net, as a medium, gains and loses focus very quickly. When the DOJ takes Microsoft to court, or a security hole opens in IIS, lots of people zero in, looking for new info, experiencing the thrill of the real-timeness of the medium. 7/15/98.
As more information became available, and my perspective shifted, I changed my mind. It happens! 7/20/98.
In many ways it would be better if there were standards for the organization of websites. 8/1/98.
What can you do to raise the emotional age of the Internet? If you feel as I do, that the lowest common denominator rules, what can we do to balance that? 8/3/98.
If I can participate in building a bridge between Mac/Windows and Unix, I can be safe from Microsoft, because I can deliver a benefit that some customers will want: Choice. 11/4/98.
How much thinking goes on on the Internet? There sure are lots of bits flying all over the place, more every day. We're in awe of our ability to make the bits fly around. Now, what messages are those bits carrying? 11/20/98.
Cookies were deployed before any standards body could object. And oh boy, if a standards body had gotten in that loop, I'm sure they would have been so complex that they'd be totally unusable. 11/23/98.
A famous San Francisco radio personality, Scoop Nisker, has said many times, "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own." So instead of shipping that long piece, I took his advice and asked a question on our new Discussion Group. After 18 hours, the answer is clear, there are lots of things people want from their web browser, some very good juicy ideas. 12/1/98.
In the rush to the web, we lost sight that the web is still a nascent application platform, it's much less sophisticated than the GUIs that evolved in the seventies and eighties. 12/14/98.
My market, both as a software developer and a network developer are people with minds. There are already plenty of places to get a dumbed down experience. I want to work with people who enjoy, use, exercise and develop their minds. 12/22/98.
If we're ever going to work together again, there will have to be give on both sides, sooner or later. We'll have to see ourselves as one country, responsible for what we do, no matter what party you belong to or support. 12/28/98.
