From the 1.9 preparation center. Eigenclass has the skinny on all the Goodness coming our way in Ruby 1.9, and, unfortunately, all the thing that will break. I’ll take the Goodness over a few hours of running tests and fixing codes.
Embrace and extend. Some people call it “change from the inside”, and that might be the next Microsoft move:
This, I think, goes to the heart of Microsoft’s open source strategy. As well as adopting those aspects of an alternative development model that it finds useful, Microsoft is aiming to blunt the undeniable power of openness by hollowing it out. If OOXML is an open standard, and some of its own software licences become OSI-approved, Microsoft will be able to claim that it, too, is an open standard, open source company.
Let me help you with that. I’m fascinated by the whole opening of the social networks idea, for all the wrong reasons. One part idle curiosity, it will require some interesting solutions that could be useful in other context, it might even be the GMail match that lit the AJAX fire.
The other part just can’t stop watching this train wreck. I can’t explain why, how or when to use OpenID to the same masses of people who’s data we’re trying to liberate. I use it because it’s cool, but I’m geek like that. So the next logical step will be to go wide, make the technology easier to understand, practical to use, teach more people why it matters.
Or we can feature creep, catch the shiny object bug, and jump on to the next train, before we nailed this one down. I have to admit the mundane work of making something rock solid and spreading it outside the geek circle is boring. Zzzzzz.
Just a reminder. OpenID is nice in theory, but in practice right now it’s still not that better than username/password, and did anyone notice the new Passport Microsoft Live ID? Let’s get all our OpenID ducks in a row before we declare fait accompli and move up the stack.
It’s the service, stupid! I wanted to mention that as well, but Bill de hÓra says it so much better:
Forget interchange across social networks. What you want to be worrying about is why can’t your WOW dwarf run amok in Vice City, once he adapted to urban life? Why can’t Club Penguins roam free in the Second Life? Why can’t Solid Snake merc it in Marioworld? Arbitrary restrictions like this are broken.
Caught speeding. Do you know the signs they put on the side of the road to show your real speed? Not speed traps, but the passive-aggressive “please slow down, we could ticket you if we had the energy”. I’m not quite sure how they operate, but turns out they can pick up a bicycle rider from a distance, and judging by my speedometer (which I trust more) damn accurate. Did you ever get caught cycling too fast by a speed trap?
Get your byte-sized Matryoshkus here.