I heard a NPR article about Municipal WiFi in Philadelphia. I have also caught bits and pieces on the Municipal Wifi fight in St. Charles Illinois. My position is simple; ubiquity of the internet is a key to developing an informed and technology savvy labor force. A tech savvy work force will be required to help the United States maintain its position as the economic force in the world. Many countries are using the flattening force of the internet to compete with the U.S. workforce. Today not only do companies compete but so do the workforces in all countries around the world.

As long as companies are going to charge $50 to $80 a month for Broadband internet access, and as long as we have ignorant, lobbyist loving Congressmen (Pete Sessions, Former Phone Executive) trying to pass laws to hinder internet access and maintain the digital divide, we are going to lose to the other countries.

Access to information must to be affordable for all Americans.

Sascha Meinrath has an article with more information.

Call and write your Congress person and say no to H.R.2726.

Jonathan Schwartz has an interesting article on his blog. I guess I should say that he has an interesting bullet point in the article. Bullet number 5 “Web services may collapse under its own weight” discusses the long running issues of standardization, lack of simplicity and overly diverse spec ecosystem. Now for the REST supporters this is a “No shit Sherlock” statement. I had a wonderful time working on the Web Services Architecture Working Group and personally agree that we are quickly approaching the crossroads with web services. There are to many definitions, to many specs, to many standards bodies, to many buzz words. So please Make it SIMPLE, Make it scaleable, Make it interoperable, and Make it affordable.

I have read some articles (listed below) about AJAX and have ranted about event based web apps as the future of the Internet. I love the idea of channeling information and experience to a user in continuous manner that provides for an increased continuity of experience. I love the smooth transition between action and response that makes us all feel safe. I love the beauty of not having to figure out if the windows icon in the browser corner is really moving. To quote a song “These are a few of my favorite things.”

The use of AJAX will require some time for the casual web user to grow comfortable with but I think it may not be as long as it took for some to grow comfortable with the original browser. From my experience in building web applications the “page click page” model has significant experience gaps brought on by the browser blink. Users of the web in my experience look for an experience that is as close to a local application as possible. The less we have users focusing on browser chrome and its behaviors the better off we are.

• Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications By Jesse James Garrett
  Great diagrams and description of AJAX.
• XMLHttpRequest, Ajax, and the customer experience By Jason Fried
• SAJAX

Welcome to WordPress 1.5. The upgrade was painless and simple as expected. I really like the new features. The default theme Kubrick is awsome and the dashboard is great. Now I just have to get into the habit of writing.

Maps, Suggest, and gMail are prime examples of event based web applications. The creators of web applications will find increasing value in building web applications that provide flicker free event based interfaces. The “page click page” construction common today is a very limited way to build a web application. Event based interfaces reduce the discontinuity of experience created by “page click page” interfaces. Builders of web applications must begin to think about event models and composite services. Google seems to have a keen understanding where web applications need to go. I hope the example set by Google inspires other builders of web applications to create amazing event based applications.

I have spent some time thinking about SOA and the possibility of an adaptive well defined enterprise. In my discussions with people I continually hear SOA and WS used interchangeably. While I understand why WS can be mistaken for SOA, SOA is not Web Services and Web Services are not SOA. SOA is a architectural style that encompasses more than just services. If consumers of technology are going to be successful the architectural style of SOA must converge in a way that allows business people to drive change across the enterprise. The implementations of SOA may include the use of Web Services but there is nothing requiring them.

Oh and one more thing WSDL was NEVER meant to be read by a human. Business people should be looking at contracts not WSDL.

The Scott McNealy Keynote was ok. I mean he had his rants and the slapping of the back by some consulting firm. Orbitz won a Dukie award for using Java and Jini that was cool. It�s nice to see a Chicago company get some recognition.

I went to some good sessions and some dogs. I attended a session on the new programming language Groovy. It is really nice and eliminates a great deal of java boilerplate. A friend of mine would like the support for closures and autoboxing. The Angry Penguin would like it because it can be run as an ant task.

I attended a session on instant messaging and presence. The best takeaways from that session were that the programming is slowly getting easier and this is going to big. Imagine a context aware device that facilitates and intermediates a customers experience. I say cool and the sooner the better.

Stay tuned more boring commentary to come.