2008-03-31
The quote of the time interval, on XML
From an article by Henri Sivonen:
Draconian error handling creates an unstable equilibrium in Game Theory terms—it only lasts until one player breaks the rule. One non-Draconian XML5 implementation in a key client product and the Draconian XML ranks would break.
(Discovered through Mark Pilgrim, specifically his firehose.)
Applications to XHTML are left as an exercise for the reader.
2007-08-02
Link: XML on the web summarized
The link of the time interval comes from the online comic strip Bonobo Conspiracy, which neatly summarizes the reality of XML on the web in today's strip.
2007-03-31
Link: you are what you code
From Robert Brewer comes You are what you code, which has given me something to think about. I'll quote the opening:
Hey, you. Do you realize what you're writing? The long-standing IT joke is that you always end up coding your own job out of existence. But what are you coding yourself into?
(From Planet Python, where his blog is aggregated.)
Update: I apologize to my readers for putting a link here that doesn't work without an extra, annoying step (see the comment).
Update2: the situation has now been fixed.
2007-02-16
QOTD: There are three types of authentication
There are three types of authentication:
They are:
- Something you've lost,
- Something you've forgotten, and
- Something you used to be.
The full entry includes an illustrative story and bonus comments (and, unfortunately, a certain amount of comment spam, at least right now).
(From Richard Johnson of river.com.)
2007-02-10
Link: Why the ease of installing Java matters
In Java in The Land of Make Believe, Ryan Tomayko unloads a righteous rant about why Java's license matters and what effects it has in the Linux and *BSD worlds, with great bits like:
If you want to get on the bad side of software developers and system admins, the fastest route is to waste their time.
Amen. What he said.
(The good news is that Sun GPL'ing Java may finally be changing all of this mess, which Tomayko happily acknowledges.)
(From many places, but I saw it originally on Planet Python, as Tomayko's blog is syndicated there.)