Robert McLaws: FunWithCoding.NET

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How I was Fooled by Dave Winer

You know, I had so hoped that Dave Winer would prove me wrong, that maybe he really had changed. So I hear from the comments in Scoble's link to me that he's back, and posted this melodramatic soliloquy (look it up) on his site. He says "I made my point." Unfortunately Dave, you made a point all right. It just wasn't the one you wanted.

Dave, you proved intsead that you are, in many ways, a four year old. Four year olds take their ball and go play somewhere else if they don't get their way. They play stupid mind games so they can be validated, and make sure that people like them.

You know, you had me fooled there for a second. I almost thought you were human. I felt bad to comparing you to Scoble's anonymous coward. I saw how people are talking about a new standard, and I can understand how you feel. Now I feel like I should have you get your diaper changed or something. I mean, how egomaniacal are you to think that the world is gonna fall apart because your site is down?

And the worst part of it all is, we all played right into his little hands. UGH that makes me so mad. Look, I have these 2 products. One translates data between formats, and one helps enable IntelliSense for web.config files in Visual Studio.NET. Now, both of these products will be obsolete in 2 years. Why? Because Whidbey hasd support for IntelliSense in web.config files, and Yukon Reporting Services will be able to kick out Excel and PDF files w/o any kinds of add-ons. Do I let this stop me? HELL NO. Why? Because I'll have my place in filling the gap in the interim. And maybe, I'll have a hand in shaping the next generation of tools. At any rate, I get to fulfill a need now, AND I have motivation to keep innovating in other areas.

Something better will always come along. These guys don't even have a working draft of anything yet. They just know that what exists now is inadequate. So instead of saying "Hey, I learned alot about the needs while creating RSS, I bet I could help you guys out. Having a single, unified API for blogging sounds really cool . We tried it with MetaWeblogAPI and so forth, but we've learned a lot since then, and it can always be better." No. Winer, the great and powerful (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!) thought that the whole world would grind to a halt because he wasn't blogging anymore. Hey, I'm got an ego too. I'm passionate too. I'm as dumb about opening my mouth as the next guy. But to have the cahones to think that we'd just forget about Echo just to have you back in the community...... ugh.

You shot yourself in the foot when you said in your RSS 2.0 spec "The spec is finished. There will never be a 3.0." The MovableType people even cited this specific reason for their support of Echo. Well, there will be a new version. And it will probably come from the Echo group. 

Dave, you cannot stop innovation. Yeah, RSS will be around for a while. It has entered history as the format one guy started that everyone from Interscape to Microsoft adopted. What have you done since then, BESIDES piss everyone else off?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice......

You better believe that WON'T happen again.

Posted: Jun 29 2003, 10:08 PM by interscape | with 24 comment(s)

Comments

TrackBack said:

Blogging Alone
# June 30, 2003 12:08 AM

TrackBack said:

Datagrid Girl
# June 30, 2003 12:08 AM

TrackBack said:

Loosely Coupled
# June 30, 2003 12:08 AM

the voice of experience said:

hey dude, don't know much about the background to your little flamewar, but trust me in my experience flaming gets you nowhere, no matter how much of an idiot the other guy might be. It will cheapen your name, and if you think his is already cheap, why go down to his level.
# June 30, 2003 7:22 AM

Robert McLaws said:

<robert to voice on shoulder>Hello voice! Thanks for speaking up so much lately. You've been a great help. Don't stop any time soon. I like to learn.
# June 30, 2003 7:48 AM

Damian said:

>>What have you done since then, BESIDES piss everyone else off?


What have you done EVER ? Besides piss everyone else off
# June 30, 2003 8:08 AM

Robert McLaws said:

Ouch. That's ok. I have pissed people off. Call it youth, call it inexperience. That's why I'm glad I have all these voices of experience to help me achieve the balance I'm looking for in my writing.

I've also wrote a lot of code since I started too. Like my code-free content management system, or my ADO.NET data export subsystem. And about 5 other products. I've grown a lot personally, and had some great experiences.

To answer your question, I've done more in my 21 years than some do by their 40s. Don't believe me? That's cool. Check out my personal blog. I'll be talking about those experiences in the days and months ahead.
# June 30, 2003 8:24 AM

Dave said:

Robert, you just expressed everything I meant by my comment in your last post.

Like you, I had started feeling that Dave Winer had a point - that he was willing to extend RSS to include the technical imporvements that Echo supposedly addresses. I wasn't yet convinced (as I know firsthand how abrasive Dave can be in matters requiring compromise) but I was beginning to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately the antics of Dave this weekend appear to be only the tip of worse things to come. He speaks often - and actually quite accurately too - about the importance of the community. Too bad that like everyone, even his actions speak louder than his words.
# June 30, 2003 8:30 AM

Dave Winer said:

The reason I started posting again is because I heard from the people I needed to hear from, the good people who read Scripting News on a summer Sunday, not the selfish flamers. I might publish the emails, there are about a hundred, and only one was from a guy like you, making accusations. My humanity is not in question Robert, despite what you say. Whether you have an axe to grind here, is.
# June 30, 2003 9:01 AM

Robert McLaws said:

You're right, Dave. Your humanity is not in question. Although it SEEMS inhuman of you to toy with my emotions like that, you did not read the post before this one, one which Scoble also linked too, which apologized and wished you luck. I thought you were genuinely trying to change. Instead it just appeared that you took your ball back and went to go play with someone else.
# June 30, 2003 11:26 AM

Rogers Cadenhead said:

What has Dave Winer done since co-creating RSS? He co-created XML-RPC, created OPML, created the MetaWeblog API, created the XmlStorageSystem API, and evangelized all of these protocols and APIs (and others).

He's even helped give Echo a considerable boost by announcing that he'll encourage UserLand to implement the protocol and linking to it numerous times on Scripting News. If he really wanted to take his ball and go home, wouldn't he do the opposite?

One of the ironies of this situation is that Dave gets accused of not working well with others in an environment built in considerable part by collaborative protocols and technology he developed.
# June 30, 2003 11:47 AM

Phil Wolff said:

A few thoughts on this flame war.

First, it appears to me that many people are taking this all a little too seriously. No lives, careers, or freedoms are on the line, so why all the name calling? When passions run hot, take a deep breath.

Second, Dave is a very public figure, so when name calling cascades, well it must be overwhelming. The presumption that he has rhino-thick skin is clearly overstated. Manners exist to permit people who don't necessarily like each to coexist in peace and even to cooperate on tasks of mutual interest.

Third, while people post in the moment, blogging is a cumulative act. In the process, it reveals much about people (too much?). Try not to judge people by the post that gored you today, but by their overall autoblogphraphy. You will have a better measure of the blogger, and so make better choices.

Inhale.

Count to ten.

Exhale.

Repeat.
# June 30, 2003 12:12 PM

Robert McLaws said:

Yay... I love new readers.

All very good stuff.

Phil, if it's any consolation, this was one of my calmer posts. I've worked really hard to cut back on the tongue-lashing.
# June 30, 2003 4:09 PM

Anon said:

Work harder
# June 30, 2003 4:53 PM

Robert McLaws said:

LOL. Thank you. Self improvement is a constant process. I work every day at improving some aspect of my life. I think that the same notions could be applied to RSS. If it dies, it's because Dave killed it by not allowing it to improve any more. Just like my personality would die if I let it stagnate.
# June 30, 2003 4:59 PM

Brian Carnell said:

Phil Wolff wrote:

"Second, Dave is a very public figure, so when name calling cascades, well it must be overwhelming. The presumption that he has rhino-thick skin is clearly overstated. Manners exist to permit people who don't necessarily like each to coexist in peace and even to cooperate on tasks of mutual interest."

And Dave has yet to show any. I mean, he's the biggest bomb thrower of them all who then has the audacity to complain about people flaming him.

The Movable Type and Blogger folks are simply taking Dave's advice not to listen to flamers. I bet developers have a lot better things to do than try to figure out what the hell Winer's talking about when he calls them "funky" and posts mini-essays attacking them for allegedly usurping his role.

The only surprising thing about this blowup is that it didn't happen sooner.
# June 30, 2003 5:24 PM

Robert McLaws said:

See, I'm not the only one that said he took his ball and went home.
# June 30, 2003 5:42 PM

Ken said:

Winer is so annoying. I agree with you completely, he can dish it, but can't take it. It would be so nice if everyone could put egos aside and accomplish something.
# June 30, 2003 6:56 PM

anon2 said:

"I've done more in my 21 years than some do by their 40s"

That's true of a suprising number of people in their twenties. That's the age that people have the energy and the free time to do more. That's the age when they think what they are doing will be recognized in twenty years by people in their twenties.

Few people that young have achieved anything that takes 30, 20, or even a mere 10 years to come to fruition. Or have the perspective to fully appreciate the difference.

A lot more goes into a single flower spike of a century plant than a whole field of day lilies.
# June 30, 2003 10:24 PM

Robert McLaws said:

Well, I'm sure it's probably easy to see that as a "he's a 21 year old who thinks he knows everything" approach, but it's not the case. I know there is much that I need to learn. I've been working on starting my own company for going on the 4th year. I won't stop till it's done. 10.. 15... 20 years? Who knows?

The difference in Dave's case is, if it took so long to do and achieved so much, why is he so eager to let his mouth completely distroy that investment and accomplishment?
# June 30, 2003 11:47 PM

Phil Wolff said:

I don't know if anyone's noticed, but Dave may be going through a sea change. In the last year he started walking for an hour a day, stopped smoking, sold his house, bought a new one three thousand miles away, sold off his company, started a new job that is non-techie and all policy/education/evangelism, picked up new stakeholders, made new friends, is travelling less. That's a lot in a short time.

Just by way of looking for deeper causes.

hmmmmm. I wonder if psychotherapists can analyze someone just from their blogging...
# July 3, 2003 3:52 PM

TrackBack said:

Six Apart
# September 12, 2003 6:12 PM

TrackBack said:

One of the things I *love* about the world of blogging is the ego &#38; personality issues the big fish...
# February 23, 2004 7:00 PM

TrackBack said:

Oh, come on now
# July 7, 2004 4:23 PM