News and commentary from the cross-platform scripting community.
	Mail Starting 7/1/97

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From: esilky@calicotech.com (Ed Silky);
Sent at 7/2/97; 10:07:11 AM;
Re:Lost in ActiveX

Writing software to the "lowest common denominator" (in this case HTML) doesn't come without a price. I don't want to comment on 'NewBot' specifically. so My point is that software is a lot like automotive accessories - I can buy a 'universal' center console from an auto parts store, but the one that is made specifically for my car (either from the manufacturer or an aftermarket vendor) has a lot better chance of fitting correctly and supplying features that are applicable to my car.

As a developer, I hear a lot of people say "Why does this require IE3?". A key reason is that (with IE) Microsoft provided a very nice, rich programming interface. They exposed key features that make is possible to do things that are hard (or impossible) to do with Navigator.

Additions are constantly being made to the HTML specification to allow richer content and a more interactive experience, but unless a browser was written to allow upgrades to its HTML engine (and the user upgrades it) this content/experience will be misse d (why can't I play Sega games on my Atari set top machine?).

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From: mwilson@teleport.com (Matthew R. Wilson);
Sent at 7/1/97; 12:28:59 PM;
Where HotWired is going

On Scripting News you mentioned that you couldn't find a page explaining where HotWired is going with 'version 4' of their site. I don't know if you have seen it, but Wired News has an article about it:

http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/4862.html

They mention that the new site is intended for the "'Web participants' - people who not only consume the Web content and integrate the Web into their lives, but participate in building the Web as well."

They are going for a medium more like "theater or television than it is to a printed page."

Personally, it gives me a headache to look at it using Communicator...haven't tried it in a 3.0 browser yet.

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From: ted.oliver@asu.edu> (by way of Brent Simmons (Ted Oliver);
Sent at 7/1/97; 12:32:23 PM;
Lost in Active-X

Having just downloaded and installed and tried out the Newbot software, I'm unimpressed. Sure, it's neat searching technology, but if all I want to do is keep up on current tech/web oriented news, it's much easier to visit:

http://www.newshub.com:80/tech/bytime.html

Somebody else is deciding what sites and what stories to link to, and Newbot clearly allows more user-level control over the search. But the end result is the same: a list of stories from the major services, which (as you allude to) allows me to read and compare different spins on the same story. It's timely (updated every 15 minutes) and tracks (at least some) stories for several days back. And it's straight html, can be viewed from old browsers, and does allow some interface-level and organizational customization by individual users (presumably via cookies).

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From: ccline@sbforums.com (Craig Cline);
Sent at 7/1/97; 12:18:06 PM;
Re:Lost in ActiveX

No kidding. The scariest thing about accessing ActiveX enhanced sites these days is that the whole web transaction has gotten ever more complex than it was in the plain vanilla HTML days. ActiveX starts downloading software onto your system which may or may not work, or a slow net conenction might leave it downloading ActiveX controls way too long. And if you quit in the middle, will your system still work? A crap shoot at best...

Installing IE is another leap of faith, with each new version more tightly integrated with your overall envrionment. This is cool when it works. But when it doesn't - its hell to clean up. IE3 isn't so bad, but don't try to uninstall IE4 and reinstall I E3. It just doesn't work - something is left behind that renders everything unstable. Of course IE4 is still in beta....

For all its faults Navigator in its various flavors still isolates most of its code from the undelrying OS, so its comparitively easy to install and uninstall. But Java and Javascript introduce their own complexity to the web experience - which perhaps a ccounts for the current trend toward simple, clean, streamlined web page design....

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From: markman@batnet.com (Markman);
Sent at 7/1/97; 10:11:31 AM;
Re:Lost in ActiveX

Browsers have a long half-life, which grows as the adoption of browser technology broadens. In the early days, by definition, you're reaching early adopters. Addicted by temperament to having the latest upgrade, they'll digest newness as fast as coders can crank it out. FAST FORWARD. As the Web audience broadens, the early adopters are soon outnumbered by folks who are moved more by utility than novelty. For early adopters, upgrading and mastering new software is pleasure. For the majority, it's a chore. Even folks who aren't intimated by the new stuff may be just too busy to bother. They won't upgrade just cause they can. They'll upgrade when the benefits strongly outweigh the hassle.

But enough about them. Let's talk about me. My general contentment with 3.0 stuff is still battling my sense of duty about being hip with the latest and greatest. I've been to the 4.0.1 download page three times so far. I can't quite bring myself to pull the trigger and initiate the download. I'm happy. Why upgrade? So I miss a few new bells and whistles on HotWired. Do you think I read it to watch headlines float before my eyes? I read it because I'm interested in what their writers have to say.

When there are compelling web-based apps, or when I'm working with a company that has bought into the communicator-based intranet, extranet vision, I'll have to upgrade. But just to get my daily fix of Web Gak, I'm a happy puppy now.

Anecdote:

A year ago I was working as creative director for a web-based magazine. We called the president of one of the most successful new media agencies now operating. He couldn't see our table-based layout because he still had Navigator 1.0 on his desktop computer. Here's a guy employing upwards of 60 people to design state-of-the-art sites for Fortune-500 companies, and nobody on his staff had bothered to update his browser.

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From: jroepcke@roepcke.com (Jim Roepcke);
Sent at 7/1/97; 10:54:52 AM;
HotWired 4.0

HotWired's new v4 home page is pretty close to what I'd imagine an acid trip would be like.

I want what I'm reading to STAY PUT, thank you! I'm thankful they can't do that in their print version... ;-)

After loading the page in Communicator 4.01 on NT 4.0, my cursor no longer changed to the little hand when my mouse was over a link, and I couldn't select text anymore. I also could not click on links anymore. I closed Communicator and re-opened it, but that didn't help. I had to log out of my NT box, and re-logon to get things back to normal again.

I don't know if this is a Communicator or HotWired thing, but it doesn't matter, because I'm not going to subject myself to being sick, just so I can [try to] read an [ugly] page...

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From: dsandler@owlnet.rice.edu (dan sandler);
Sent at 7/1/97; 10:54:46 AM;
Re:Lost in ActiveX

True, many "geekish" readers of Scripting News still haven't upgraded past Netscape 2.0. Quite simply, a 9 megabyte RAM footprint for table colors (and not much else, really) isn't worth it for us...

True, we may not support the 3.0 browser revisions, but at 16 megabytes a pop, I'm wondering if the 4.0 version will catch on either.. *some* of us don't upgrade our hardware every month. ;)

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From: wcate@qm.prubank.com (Will Cate);
Sent at 7/1/97; 11:08:20 AM;
Who are the brain police?

Last night, as I was sampling various TV coverage of the Hong Kong handover, I punched up C-SPAN, which was re-broadcasting the CCTV (state-run Chinese television) coverage of ceremonies being held at Tienamen Square. It was an enormous spectacle, more like a Super Bowl halftime show than a political ceremony, with dancers, drill squads and state-sanctioned pop singers.

Then a CCTV English-language news broadcast began. Sounding about as natural as a hostage victim reading a prepared statement, a young, pretty anchorperson told us how wonderful was China's reunion with the "province of Hong Kong," how the "one nation, two-system" course of rule would be "historic" and "unprecidented." Yeah, right.

For me, watching this Peoples' Republic broadcast put the doomed CDA in a new light: we, the freest people on the earth, were inches away from being subject to an enforceable policy of totalitarian thought control. A different court might have ruled in a different way. We must never, ever allow this to happen again. And it certainly could: the pro-censorship forces have willing allies in the mainstream press (witness the NY Times' never-ending barrage of 'net horror stories), and pointy-headed legislators vow to continue to "fight for the children" (the all-purpose Trojan Horse which now carries, through our gates, restrictions on personal freedom).

Watch how China handles Hong Kong over the next few months. Watch also how non-wired USA handles the Internet community. I think there might be more than a few interesting parallels.