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News and commentary from the cross-platform scripting community.
cactus Mail Starting 10/27/97

From: cshotton@biap.com (Chuck Shotton);
Sent at 10/27/97; 6:54:14 PM;
Humor in the Microsoft suit

Ferreting through Microsoft's response and countersuit, I came across the following and nearly fell out of my chair laughing!

5.56, g. ...If Sun's "write once, run anywhere" plan has failed, it is due to Sun's actions and inactions. Sun's attempt to blame Microsoft for the failure of Java, now or in the future, to attain Sun's claimed benefit of "write once, run anywhere" is a breach of its covenant of good faith and fair dealing and deprives Microsoft of quiet enjoyment of the benefits of its bargain.

From: jonny@interactive.ihost.com (Jonathan Peterson);
Sent at 10/27/97; 5:54:21 PM;
Watch This

Just read the Watch This! column you pointed to today (it was before my time) and it's got me all excited.

Your object-oriented web site is exactly what I envisioned in conversations with Steve Champeon (http://www.jaundicedeye.com/) earlier this year. Lessons learned automating CNN Interactive's web site production led me down the path of defining a simple OO programming language for web site development/deployment when I decided the job was too big to do as brain exercise.

There is no reason web pages cannot be viewed as executable programs and HTML as the assembly language of the web. A big problem with the web is that 4GLs (wysiwyg html editors) sprung up before the more powerful/flexible 2GLs were ever created. What is terribly lacking is a simple/powerful OO programming language. The best thing about such a model is that if created as a source code based programming language it brings many of the benefits of traditional OO languages (re-use, inheritance) and extends software development practices to the web which will ease the development of large complex sites (source/revision control, make files, etc.).

The problem has been attacked in a backwards way by tools like Cold Fusion, which embed a programming language inside HTML. What is needed is a higher level language which compiles to HTML as needed, but allows for dynamic content creation as needed (ala run-time binding in the programming world). This model allows presentation and content to be broken apart allowing easier maintenance of each. A Godsend to both graphic artists and technicians, and really the only way we'll be able to create content which can be repurposed for the range of internet enabled devices that we will be seeing in the next 5-10 years.

I've been beating this drum for everyone in the biz of creating web tools who will listen. Companies like Macromedia just don't understand that text source code is the only way to manage large software projects and simplest way to allow a product to grow through 3rd party extensions.

From: maurice@envirolink.org (Maurice Rickard);
Sent at 10/27/97; 10:35:51 AM;
Re:"Who's the artist?"

The style (and the signature) look like John O'Brien (O'Brian?), who's been published in a lot of places, particularly in the _New Yorker_ before Tina Brown took the helm.

From: wtb@cudaworks.com (Bill Berry);
Sent at 10/27/97; 8:24:00 AM;
Wait Til Next Year?

First of all, wait til next year is a universal baseball refrain, from T-Ball to the majors. Second, *real* Met fans are greatful to have a team with the 6th best record in baseball, particularly when they were expected to be *terrible*. And real Met fans declared "wait til next year" sometime in August or early September. The last game of the World Series is, shall we say, a bit late!

From: Rjoconnor@aol.com;
Sent at 10/27/97; 12:05:05 PM;
Re:Gates to Sculley

If you re-read my January 1996 front page story about the coming demise of Apple, you will see that letter quoted. It was freely shown to me in 1994 by Gates personally. It's no deep dark secret that Carlton or anybody else just miraculously dug up, and many of the people involved have previously discussed it (Markkula included).

O'Connor is a reporter at the San Jose Mercury-News.

From: markman@batnet.com (Markman);
Sent at 10/27/97; 12:31:20 PM;
Carlton

Jim Carlton's book is generally weak on Apple's marketing blunders. He deals with engineering projects, numerous proposals for licensing, failed attempts to sell the company... and above all the follies and foibles of the top tier of executives (and one very conspicuous executive assistant).

For the stuff he looked at, Carlton did a great job of triangulation and managed to get a huge amount of stuff on the record. But on the marketing side, he just didn't seem to probe very deeply. (Maybe nobody would talk. Maybe he never asked.)

Just thought you'd like to know that, back in 1990, there was a lot of development work on a campaign that would have been very close to what you proposed.

At the time of the Windows 3.1 launch, BBDO proposed a very cheeky set of attack ads. They showed side-by-side shots of, for example, a Rolls and a VW with a fake Rolls front end... Elvis and a really bad Elvis impersonator. Mac was boldly positioned as the original, with Windows painted as a pale imitator.

Don't know who killed it. But the list of suspects is finite.

Markman is a former ad exec at Apple.

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