From “Damien Katz: New Gig“:
Great news! I’ve accepted a permanent, full-time job with IBM. My primary duties are (drumroll….) CouchDB! So all the stuff I’ve been doing up until now for free I’ll be doing full time and be getting paid for it! Yee Haw!
That is fantastic news for both Damien and the CouchDB project. Shaweet!
From: “End of Support for Netscape web browsers – The Netscape Blog“:
Given AOL’s current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it’s the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox.
Sniff… But only in a nostalgic kinda way. It’s the right decision, and I praise AOL for advising their users to move to Firefox. Now please please pleeeeeze just do the same for AIM/ICQ, in favour of the Jabber protocol (XMPP), and we’ll be on a roll!
While I’m on the browser subject, everybody’s favourite Factory Joe (aka Chris Messina) has a great post touching on the rising trend of site specific browsers and the state of the Mozpad project (and by association, XUL).
And since I’m in the subject chaining mood, check out Spicebird, a new neat Mozilla-based collaboration suite coming to us from India.
I have released a new version (1.2) of wpDirAuth, my LDAP connectivity plugin for WordPress.
The release brings the ability to specify alternate ports for the chosen LDAP server(s), as well as a few bug fixes found through the help of the development and support group members.
The main “Extend” page on WordPress.org states:
One of the core philosophies of WordPress is to keep the core code as light and fast as possible but to provide a rich framework for the huge community to expand what WordPress can do, limited only by their imagination.
That’s a statement I’ve heard about countless platforms before, but have often been disappointed to find it to be more of a marketing catch-phrase than anything concrete. Not so with WordPress!
I’ve been doing research on how to achieve specific goals with yet another plugin project, and the more I look, the easier it gets. Every time I catch myself thinking “hmm, this one’s gonna be tough”, a quick trip to the WP Codex changes my attitude within just a few minutes. Everything is possible.
Don’t get me wrong, WP is far from the only extensible platform out there and everybody has their personal pet peeves with the code base, but when coupled with amenities such as the wp-hackers mailing list and the wp-plugins dev repo, Matt and Automattic sure made it easy to adopt WordPress as a full featured scaffolding. And that’s coming from a guy who’s usually happy to start his projects from scratch.
I will be attending the CodeFest2008 hosted in Montreal on January 5th and 6th. This year’s theme will be all about microformats. Here is a link to the Facebook event, if you’re having trouble reaching the official wiki.
I will be vying to address an hreview project I am getting involved with, unless I’m already done with it by then, in which case I’ll find something Diso related to tackle (if not both).
Note: the event is not limited to PHP by any stretch, and anyone is welcomed. Join us, it’ll be fun. And as always, it will also be a great opportunity to network with your tech-peers.
Ha! I knew I could almost taste the mythical open, decentralized social network of tomorrow. In context, turns out it was the network of the day-after-tomorrow, with Chris Messina posting today that:
Steve Ivy and I have embarked on a prototype project to build a social network with its skin inside out. We’re calling it DiSo, or “Distributed Social Networking applications”. The emphasis here is on “distributed”.
The initial implementation of the project is built on WordPress, though making clear that this project is intended to be an example whose concepts should be able to be implemented on any platform. Since Steve offers a path to contribute to their effort (see “What’s Next”), I think the floater in my break list might just have found a permanent slot. With a twist and all for the better, so long as I find an area I can effectively contribute to.
I’ve tried to address related subjects on wp-hackers before, but the thread never picked up. The plugin paradigm is always a good approach, and if the implementation solidifies, code could ultimately make it into the WP core. +1 for that on my side! Just visit this very site with the excellent Operator FireFox add-on, and you’ll see what I mean. 🙂
On the other hand, Open Social is now being reported as being delayed until next year:
OpenSocial received a ton of hype when it was announced. Rumors of an early November launch surfaced following Arrington’s announcement of Maki Maki. The announcement turned out to be only that, an announcement. Soon after, I spoke with developers that suggested would open their platform by December 5th. That hasn’t happened either. Techcrunch has pointed to a Google group about OpenSocial in which a Google employee states “This puts us into January before the API is ready to be implemented by containers, so expect some early adopters to have a public launch early 2008.”
With so much activity at the standards/architecture level in the identity and social spheres right now, I’m one to say waiting a few months might actually be a very good thing for all involved parties here. A project of Dilo’s scale will thrive on the experimental angle and be malleable enough to rapidly adapt to changes, but OpenSocial is expected by many to be a stable platform to invest in, and has been presented (or represented) as so.
I’ll be focusing on Plank until the holidays, but I’m already finding myself filling up my wish list for what I want to tackle during the break. Family first, but there’s always a few hours of the day (err, night) to geek it out.
So far, here’s what I have down. Posting it here will give me a push to get it done. 🙂
Bah, with three kids, it’s not like it was going to be a relaxing vacation anyway.
Might as well just add to the fun. 😉
From Fixing HTML:
HTML needs fixing. The HTML 4 recommendation was published in 1999. Since then, the web has grown from a document retrieval system into an application delivery system. We have made significant progress since then, due to the cleverness of the web development community and the surprising expressive power of JavaScript, but we are at the limits. HTML is no longer a driver of innovation. It is now a serious impediment.
I’ve always favoured HTML 5 over XHTML 2.0, but Douglas Crockford does have an interesting point there, though it could unarguably be labeled as a bit drastic at times.
If you happen to be both a WPhone and Facebook user, we invite you to check out the new WPhone Administration Plugin page Doug had the insight to setup today.
One more! Tonight was FaceBookCampMontreal, an unconference for everyone with an interest in building on the Facebook Platform. Once again, great event, great crowd, very interesting subject.
I’d venture to say that the event was actually a bit late for the developer crowd, since we’ve all drunk the Facebook API Kool-Aid months ago, and most of us have been playing with it publicly or in private sandboxes. On the other hand, the PR crowd was there in full force and was visibly excited by the torrent of opportunities the FB ecosystem truly is.
So if you need a Facebook application and don’t know where to start, a good first step is to call Plank. :o) We’ll hook you up with a strategy that makes sense for both you and your users/audience.
I also have my own pipe dreams, but I’m just too busy to take on yet another project right now. Maybe in December…