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News and commentary from the cross-platform scripting community.
cactus Mail Starting 10/7/97

From: markman@batnet.com (Markman);
Sent at 10/7/97; 6:03:00 PM;
Three years young

My birthday gifts to DaveNet

1. a bottomless well of well-chilled o's, ready for packaging in your patented cooools!

2. scripting hooks in every program that remotely catches your fancy

3. an official IDG-published "Frontier for Dummies." (maybe I'll finally learn it)

4. love and naches, and well, nachos, too

5. respect from every arrogant pezzonovante vendor out there. (and they know who they are.)

6. more cover articles in print

7. a great 5.0 launch

8. a More revival

9. continued insight and passion

10. three times three more years and counting

From: wesf@mail.utexas.edu (Wesley Felter);
Sent at 10/7/97; 7:43:11 PM;
Happy birthday DaveNet!

Congrats! 12 cylinders! Man, that's a car. That's a long DaveNet. I remember when it was young, after you had that little one-paragraph blurb in Wired. Some guy's taking on Apple. Yawn, next page. But I checked out the site (on hotwired.com) and it wasn't just another disgruntled Apple developer (back when we thought it was the duty of an Apple developer to be disgruntled...).

I was coming back from school the other day, stopped at a red light, and Sheryl Crow was on the radio. "All I want to do is have a little fun before I die" she says. I thought of you. Dave Winer just wants to have fun and keep diggin'. Right on!

From: sally@kins.com (Sally Atkins);
Sent at 10/7/97; 7:46:39 PM;
Re:Sun Sues Microsoft

I have never seen as much anger and emotion in a press statement as in the Microsoft response to Sun's suit! For instance, the statement "Sun has apparently decided they cannot compete in the marketplace." . I think quite the contrary, Sun is a seriously successful business with an open (no account control) philosophy which is the key to sustained growth in the Internet era!

From: cpr@emsoftware.com (Chris Ryland);
Sent at 10/7/97; 7:44:27 PM;
Re:Three Years of DaveNet

I heard something from a wise monk (yes, there are Franciscan serving the poor and thriving) in the Bronx this week, who said he learned it from his logic professor in college:

"No one knows what they're doing in life. If it appears they do, then you're deceived. If they think they do, they're deceiving themselves. We all just muddle along as best we can."

I'm paraphrasing, but I think it's a good lesson for everyone to remember.

From: 0005777433@MCIMAIL.COM (Bobby Orbach);
Sent at 10/7/97; 7:14:04 PM;
Re:Three Years of DaveNet

Big Dave,

3 Years UNBELEIVABLE!!!!!

MAZAL TOV!!!

Keep 'em coming

Bobby

From: tclifton@es-designs.com (Tom Clifton);
Sent at 10/7/97; 4:07:01 PM;
Happy Birthday DaveNet

I wanted to thank you for DaveNet. I have read it with interest for the past two years. I dived into the archives today to try and find where I picked up the thread. As near as I can remember, it was Welcome Back Jean-Louis article in October 1995.

In two years, a lot has changed for me. I have gone from being a bored geologist in a company that doesn't understand or value the Internet to an independent consultant on the verge of helping design an Internet-based information management system on one of the largest engineering projects in the world. Cool!

DaveNet and Frontier have been an integral part of the transformation, though getting laid off did help. Through DaveNet, I thought about the possibilities, through Frontier, I implemented them.

Thanks for your thoughts and your tools.

Sincerely, Tom

PS. I have found spell checkers to be incredibly perceptive and amusing. The suggested alternatives for DaveNet: 1) Divinity 2) Deviant.

From: jdoerr@kpcb.com (John Doerr);
Sent at 10/7/97; 3:08:31 PM;
Re:Three Years of DaveNet

Congratulations on 3 years of DaveNet. You've helped us keep a sense of community. Keep diggin' on.

From: bens@MICROSOFT.com (Ben Slivka);
Sent at 10/7/97; 3:03:37 PM;
Re:Three Years of DaveNet

Dave, Congratulations on your 3 year anniversary! I came late to DaveNet (I've got an archive of your e-mails, earliest one is WWW Software Demo from 1/27/95), but I've always appreciated your perspective and insight.

From: enakata@pointcast.com (Elisa Nakata);
Sent at 10/7/97; 3:00:37 PM;
Re:Three Years of DaveNet

Happy Anniversary, Dave!!! And mega-thanks for your commitment, enthusiasm and insight the last 3 years!

From: chris@ewerks.com (Chris Chapman);
Sent at 10/7/97; 3:02:33 PM;
Agreement with Chuck

I must say that I completely agree with Chuck, in the sense that WebObjects is a cumbersome, little forgiving environment for web application development. I haven't seen anything accomplished with WO that couldn't be done with Everyware's Tango and a Frontier scripted site. WebObjects seems to be much like hunting quail with a laser-sighted Howitzer: Lot's of bang, little substance. The development and support costs must be ludicrous compared to the ratio of money saved or earned.

But you have to admit one thing: If WO was still a Next gig and Next wasn't part of Apple, it would certainly be easier to possibly sell the package deal to CIOs. Like it or not, this Apple has a bruise. It will take much more convincing to get people to even take a bite -- much less the mouthful that WebObjects must be.

Thanks but no thanks. I can stay lighter on my feet with a few Macs, Frontier, and some good database integration tools (like Tango) that are easy to manage. And I can guarantee my costs are much easier to swallow, given the portability of the environments. (At least when Frontier 5 comes of age.)

From: spiff@edventure.com (Jerry Michalski);
Sent at 10/7/97; 5:40:12 PM;
Re:Three Years of DaveNet

Thank you. Congratulations. 452 pieces is astonishing; your nature jumps out through them all. You're an inspiration. Sincerely.

From: amy@home.cynet.net (Amy Wohl);
Sent at 10/7/97; 5:30:35 PM;
Re:Three Years of DaveNet

Dave, thanks for three years of fun and friendship. I've enjoyed your articles enormously. Keep up the good work.

From: bkelly@cloud9.net (Brian Kelly);
Sent at 10/7/97; 5:32:32 PM;
DaveNet Rocks :-)

I've only been visiting scripting.com for a couple of months now, but it's one of those sites I go to EVERY DAY! Right next to microsoft.com and stomped.com (quake stuff!).

I love the variety of/layout of/abundant amount of/intersting content of the articles and posts. Thanks for such a cool place to visit (three times a day!).

I am pumped to have some fun as soon as it comes out for Win95 :-)

From: dgillmor@sjmercury.com (Dan Gillmor);
Sent at 10/7/97; 2:13:18 PM;
DaveNet

Congratulations on your 3 years of DaveNet. It's a terrific resource for the community (whatever that is these days).

From: FIngham@xpense.com (Fred Ingham);
Sent at 10/7/97; 2:11:22 PM;
Re:Three Years of DaveNet

Thanks to you for putting so much in to DaveNet. It helps keep me abreast of news that is important but not central to my day-to-day job, and I love the fresh perspectives on how people work together in the industry, and how things are changing. Keep up the great work.

I especially liked I Do. One of those ideas that is so obviously right, it's amazing it hasn't been part of our culture from the very beginning.

From: EPI@compuserve.com (John Henshall);
Sent at 10/7/97; 4:57:41 PM;
Light and Hard

Dave -

Q: What's the difference between light and hard?

A: You can sleep with a light on.

Good to see you at Seybold.

- John

From: cshotton@biap.com (Chuck Shotton);
Sent at 10/7/97; 2:00:55 PM;
Re:"Dell NOT using WO anymore"

I have to respond to Chris Chapman's "conspiracy theory" about WebObjects and Dell. Let's apply Occam's Razor. Assuming that people are spurning WebObjects because it now sports an Apple logo is not the simplest answer. This simple answer is that WebObjects is a technology beyond the ability of most mere mortals to master in any useful way. NeXT was able to build a great consulting business around it but it simply is not a product that can be easily utilized by most people or organizations responsible for Web site creation.

That's not to say it isn't a useful tool or is without merit. It's simply not the panacea that Apple would have had us all believe when they acquired it. That there has been no marketing or press efforts aimed at WebObjects is somewhat of an indictment in itself. It says to me that Apple can't figure out what they have well enough to even tell people about it. I'm sure high-end Web consultants love WebObjects. But don't blame its failure to gain mass acceptance on the fact that it now has an Apple logo associated with it. Rather, accept the simple answer that it's too darned hard to use.

From: jussi.haro@greyinteractive.fi (Haro Jussi);
Sent at 10/7/97; 6:17:10 PM;
A frontier site

I think I've forgot to tell you even though it's been out for a while :

http://www.nokia.com/americas/

has been made with Frontier, and we couldn't have done it in time without it. The customer wished people couldn't see the tools that were used to create it (nor the people that did it) so you can't directly see it's Frontier stuff..

From: cwood@vignette.com (Charlie Wood);
Sent at 10/7/97; 10:13:53 AM;
web.builder and scripting in general

I see you're moderating the open mike at CNET's web developer conference in New Orleans next week. Cooool! I finally get to meet The Dave in person. If you make it to the opening night reception, I'll buy you that beer I promised you.

Also, I'd like to give you a heads-up about a product that I think you would find interesting. (This isn't the shameless plug it sounds like, but I did like the product so much I joined the company...) It's a high-end scripting/database tool for building web sites, and it includes an amazing amount of other stuff, too.

When you get 15 minutes, go to the Vignette home page at http://www.vignette.com/ and read about StoryServer 3. It does a lot of what Frontier does, but on Solaris and NT, and uses Oracle, Informix, Sybase, or MS SQL Server for a backend data store. Also, it uses Tcl for its scripting language.

I'd like to get your thoughts on dynamic vs. cached vs. rendered sites, too. I'll try and find you at the conference. Let the good times roll!

From: r1560c@email.sps.mot.com (Ben Kimball);
Sent at 10/7/97; 1:11:24 PM;
Amusing coincidence

Congratulations! 451 pieces in 3 years. Interestingly, as Ray Bradbury told us, 451 F is the flash point for paper. A fitting number for a purely electronic media form.

From: chris@ewerks.com (Chris Chapman);
Sent at 10/7/97; 10:36:28 AM;
Dell NOT using WO anymore

Something interesting to note...

Dell's website is no longer using WebObjects to sell its computers online -- which has changed in the past couple of weeks. Isn't it interesting that Michael Dell chose to keep mum about the WebObjects success, then puts down Apple publicly only after they get the system migrated.

Granted, WO was a Next baby until Apple came along and slapped a new logo on it. Could this be a trend of enterprise level rejection of WO only because of the Apple logo?? It's not like it's Apple technology. Heck, it won't even run on a Mac -- yet.

Now THERE'S something to watch.

From: hale@onr.com (Mason Hale);
Sent at 10/7/97; 11:39:53 AM;
Re:""News.com: Dell says Apple should close shop.""

Just FYI: in the past 3-4 weeks Dell finally successfully dumped WebObjects in favor of a Microsoft- built solution using active server pages.

It took them along time, but they finally did pull it off. If you look at the urls now, you'll notice the "/WebObjects/" path no longer appears and now all filenames end with ".asp".

From: correia@barebones.com (Jim Correia);
Sent at 10/7/97; 8:43:51 AM;
Dreamweaver and BBEdit 4.5

Currently the only version of BBEdit that will interoperate with Dreamweaver is 4.0.5. BBEdit 4.0.5 is identical to 4.0.4, except that it explicitly supports Dreamweaver. Due to schedule constraints, Dreamweaver support could not be fully integrated into 4.5 and tested before it shipped. Dreamweaver will ship with BBEdit 4.5.1, which will fully support it. Updates to 4.5.1 ( when it is ready, and has been announced ) will be available free of charge from our web and ftp sites, as well as the usual mirrors.

From: fm@espace.net (Fearghas McKay);
Sent at 10/7/97; 1:27:13 PM;
DreamWeaver and BBEdit 4.5

DreamWeaver doesn't recognise BBEdit 4.5.

It asks me to upgrade to a new version.

From: raster@execpc.com (rasterboy);
Sent at 10/7/97; 7:05:27 AM;
Re:"News.com: Dell says Apple should close shop."

I thought this was interesting, as I remember reading that Dell uses WebObjects (which is an Apple product) and when Microsoft put mucho resources into getting Dell to run MS software in it's place, they just couldn't do it.

From: raster@execpc.com (rasterboy);
Sent at 10/7/97; 6:59:21 AM;
Re:"Three years ago today"

Well, two years ago today, my wife and I got married! So it's a super-celebration day for mr. and mrs. rasterboy!

From: oliver@boinx.com (Oliver Breidenbach);
Sent at 10/7/97; 11:05:51 AM;
Re:"A Unique View On Java"

May I kindly ask as to why the Java Lobby members do not go ahead and develop a 100% Java implementation for Windows and instead rely on Microsoft to do it? Your Java can be implemented as an IE 4.0 plug in.

If you do not like what Microsoft does, do not rely on it. Simple.

For me the lack of "doing it" spirit looks like a lot of people see Java already fail and just need someone to put the blame on.

From: beno@euro.apple.com (Michel Benevento);
Sent at 10/7/97; 11:02:16 AM;
Sun, Java and the Mac

At Java's introduction (about 2 years ago) there were Windows and a Solaris preview-versions of Sun's HotJava browser -- no Mac version was available (still isn't). For many moons, the Mac world could not see or use applets on their machines (It was Netscape who finally changed this).

Not many people know this, but the Mac version of HotJava did exist! Under strict non-disclosure I obtained a copy (through Apple) and had the little Duke tumbling around my Mac. The program was at the same version number as the other platforms, but extremely unstable.

Why didn't they bring it up to speed and release it? Is it because Sun engineers find it very hard to write code for the Mac? Because Sun doesn't feel the Mac is worth pouring resources into? Becasue Sun is not getting the cooperation they need from Apple? Because Sun feels the MacOS is too big a threat to the JavaOS? Whatever it is, Sun never released a Mac version. Sun's ambivalence of going against MS Windows while not openly supporting the only viable alternative is beyond me.

The ambivalence continues: I work as a contractor for both Apple and Sun here in the Netherlands. At Sun, the official desktop support policy includes the MacOS, but in practice you can not get it. Every desk at Sun has a Solaris SPARCstation that people use for web browsing, sending mail and scheduling appointments. To get any kind of work done, everybody also has a Windows laptop (or uses SoftWindows on Solaris) running officially supported MSOffice. People are happily surprised when they manage to print something correctly.

From: filsa@gol.com (Philip Suh);
Sent at 10/7/97; 3:28:54 PM;
Scripting DreamWeaver

At the moment, there's no scripting support for Dreamweaver. I just ran the Commercial Developer's, and the glue table comes up with: bringToFront, isRunning, openDoc, printDoc, quit.

Dreamweaver feels like the tool everyone has been waiting for. A lot of the features make such good sense, and so easy to use. Adding a Shockwave file is just as easy as an image: drag and drop, then point out to the shockwave file.

Hopefully scripting Dreamweaver won't be just a dream--get that scripting support in!

From: charlesf@MICROSOFT.com (Charles Fitzgerald);
Sent at 10/6/97; 8:35:16 PM;
Do As I Say, Not As I Do

We understand Sun plans a press conference tomorrow morning to talk about IE4. In the unlikely event they do not use this press conference to add to the many accolades IE4 has already won, I offer a few questions:

From: dwiner@well.com (Dave Winer);
Sent at ;
Re:"What makes women click?"

Thea:

As usual with gender-stereotypes, it's an equal opportunity insult. Yeah I have shopped online. Why not? Ooops. I'm a man!

Dave

From: thea@techbabes.com (Thea);
Sent at 10/6/97; 7:33:50 PM;
What makes women click?

Re: http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_1323.html

"Empowering. Instead of going store to store, women can research purchases by going site to site. Fun. Women enjoy checking out new cosmetics and clothing trends on the Web."

The assumption that women will be online "only" to do shopping is very narrow minded and rather insulting.

The women I have met online are there to "empower" their lives with information about technology, business & work, family, life and health issues. They are online to share and develop dialog and community.

Bah ...shopping .... how so very sterotypical. I thought we were finally moving past that.

See the directory site for a list of important pages on this server This page was last built on Tue, Oct 7, 1997 at 7:48:52 PM, with Frontier version 5.0a2. Internet service provided by Conxion. Mail to: webmaster@content.scripting.com. © copyright 1997 UserLand Software.