Start here to see what this is i response to.
… how many of you go back to the pre-web days? I do – graduated in 1987, I’ve had to practically start again 3 or 4 times in the last 20 years – Unix before Linux, X-windows, dumb terminal to client-server, pre-javascript web tech, javascript, hand crafting your own stuff in raw html, Java, PHP, Java again, Rails. All I’ve ever wanted to do was deliver systems that work and meet real-world problems in a usable way. Be able to go home at the end of the day feeling I’ve achieved something and the people who use the stuff I wrote can do their jobs more effectively and not be dehumanised by it, hence my dislike for techie arrogance, which I see all the time.
2.0 is a Tim O’Reilly marketing thing, because he saw a lot of problems with the current technology and wanted to have some kind of dividing line to help people distinguish between things. But like the man at ucov says: no business model, no idea what people want, groovy idea that recycles some stuff other people have already failed at = failure. I’m with Paul Graham on this one – work on something boring and painful (for the punters) and you will see the rewards. Shiny is’t necessarily good1. You seem to have bought the marketing hype.
I applaud people’s enthusiasm – I want technology to work and help us get out of the social and cultural ruts we’re beginning to die from (a rut is a grave that has’t had the ends filled in yet). Debate is healthy and really useful. The best “manifesto” is something people find useful and the culture that coheres around it. I’d rather work on that than an essay, any day.
F
1 for some reason line from “venus in furs” started going through my head when I wrote that, must get new prescription for meds.