Seems the button-meme meme simultaneously infected a few of us the other day.
Over at mod-pubsub, just the day before Scoble's post regarding the RSS button meme, we created a new button for use on pages/projects that utilize mod-pubsub, and introduced it in precisely the same way, as a meme. [If you don't know what mod-pubsub is, go check it out - in short, it is asynch pubsub using web standards, a very RESTian approach, enabling some message exchange patterns you may not have thought possible today on the web]
This may have been more than coincidence - I think there is some deeper magic at work beneath Microsoft's technology roadmap (especially Indigo), and what it means for web technology purists. More to come on this.
JP of ModPubsubPeople provides a nod of recognition to .NET - I guess I am now obligated to contribute something from my mod_pubsub-fueled smart client tinkerings. ;)
Agent provocateur Philip Greenspun takes a slap at Java for being "the SUV of programming languages" (and being a resident of Cambridge, he doesn't mean that in a nice way).
I actually rather like Java in the abstract -- it's like a kitchen with all the fancy appliances! -- but I find that in the mod-pubsub context it always seems just a bit too... heavy. Who wants to fiddle with a bunch of CLASSPATHs and fire up Eclipse just to write a little connector? Increasingly we find ourselves reaching for Python (or .NET, for those of us inclined that way) instead.
In general, I think Java maybe encourages "big architecture think" -- which I've never been convinced is the right paradigm for the Internet. I love rolling out heterogenous Open Source packages without worrying about what they're written in or if they go together. Technologies like mod-pubsub will supply the lightweight integration that makes them go together. So the job of the architect might not be to make sure that a platform is all-one-technology from front to back -- but to keep track of all the various parts and make sure they hang together properly. [Mod-pubsub blog]
The Furrygoat quotes:
[Yahoo!] Based on the enthusiastic customer response for limited edition Starbucks merchandise, Starbucks Coffee Company is formalizing its place in the collector market with the launch of StarbucksCollectibles.com. Opening its virtual doors today, StarbucksCollectibles.com will serve as an online resource for researching past and future Starbucks Collectibles.
and then jokes:
Just as long as they don't have 3 year old coffee on there...
But seriously, I wonder if there is any market for old coffee - recently, I came across an old 1/4 lb. bag of java, a promotional item from Sun Service, that I believe is from when Java (the platform/language) was just out. The crazy things you can find in the depths of your filing cabinet!
Sam noticed Dare Obasanjo's recent MSDN article on building a desktop news aggregator in C#.
The cool thing, for all you dotnetweblog-gers, is that in the code download for RSSBandit (which is linked to from the article), he included a set of feeds to get users jumpstarted, and foremost among them is the dotnetweblogs OPML file (as of mid-February). You've just been published on MSDN ;) - look for a jump in your readership...thanks Dare!
Early next week, I'll send out the first issue of my free "Distributed .NET Newsletter".
This bi-weekly newsletter contains real world tips and tricks about .NET Remoting, Web Services and EnterpriseServices, and design guidance for distributed applications. You'll also find the occasional pointers to other free resources like white papers, patterns&practices documents or other great samples on the web.
You can subscribe to the newsletter in HTML or plaintext format at http://www.ingorammer.com/contact/Newsletter.aspx.
[Ingo Rammer's DotNetCentric]
Ingo definitely knows his .NET Remoting. Check it out, no strings attached.
In today's devx newsletter, in an article-short entitled "Convert Code from VB.NET to C#", Marco Bellinaso identifies a couple of available services for converting C# code to VB. He says, however, that he is unaware of any tools that perform the reverse translation (from VB to C#), and then goes on to describe a workaround process for doing this that uses Anakrino.
A couple of months ago, someone (I think it was Chris Sells) pointed me to an open source utility called BabbelFisken that does exactly this. In fact, BabbelFisken also converts from Classic VB to C#, from Delphi to C#, and from Turbo Pascal 5 to C#!
Source code (C#) included. Check it out.
I thought I'd come out more bohemian, but probably so much time spent on XP has made me one of its own! (Thanks to Sam Gentile for the link)
Which OS are You?
TimBL nails it, IMO (emphasis mine):
San Francisco Chronicle is reporting on TimBL's speech to NSF...Tim made the point that "web services" are about performing remote operations. When viewed in high contrast, "web services" build a web of interconnected verbs, while "semantic web" builds a web of interconnected nouns. It was encouraging to see a journalist relaying the message that the two worlds will be complimentary, rather than succumb to the typical Zoroastrian storyline. [Better Living Through Software]
This metaphor seems to be a very nice model to keep in mind when you are architecting your services, and going crazy trying to reconcile the SOAP-centric and REST-centric perspectives. It's just verbs and nouns.
I'm no REST guru, but I think the RESTians would say you already have the 3 or 4 verbs you need in the HTTP protocol. This just isn't sufficient (even if expressible, it's not very accessible)for complex LOB enterprise applications. They may all eventually boil down to the 4 CRUD actions, but you need to supply a richer verb set, a domain-centric verb set.
Of course others have already provided very practical advice on designing RESTful SOAP.
More Posts