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Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> I think there is a widening chasm between the folksonomic 
> application of web technologies and their specifications. 
> It begins to look like music theory: what the books say 
> is correct and appropriate versus what the performer and 
> composer know just works.
> 

Maybe, and maybe not. Lately I've noticed several cases where the 
Politburo triumphed over earlier, looser code-what-works approaches:

1. REST is slowly winning converts from the web services camp. Compare 
APP vs. the Blogger API. APP may be the protocol that finally shows the 
world what REST can do.

2. Well-formed RSS and Atom is far more common than it used to be. 
Escaped HTML is dying.

3. SVG trounced VML, and is making some small inroads against Flash.

4. CSS is finally preferred to tables for layouts among the 
professionals. This meme is spreading to the amateurs as well.

When the Politburo has good reasons for what they decide, they can often 
win in the long term. Of course sometimes they're just out to sea too 
(W3C XML Schemas) , as are we all at times. There are still some areas 
(Canvas vs. SVG, WebForms 2.0 vs. XForms) where I expect the wisdom of 
the Politburo will eventually be confirmed. However sometimes you have 
to let people dig themselves into a wet, muddy hole before they're 
willing to invest in your improved hole digger. :-)

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo@m...
XML in a Nutshell 3rd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian3/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596007647/cafeaulaitA/ref=nosim

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