There are a limited number of profound statements in this world
I’m at home on Dundee having a couple of weeks off work. I got here on Wednesday and I think I’ve finally wound down just in time for Christmas Day with all that lovely food, presents and probably mediocre TV. I’m not religous, but in response to the winterval nonsense I’m using the C-word.
To one and all, have a very Merry Christmas and a tremendous New Year.
(Especially all those who didn’t get Christmas cards. When my iMac died a couple of months ago I lost all my postal addresses.)
It’s winter and our central heating is playing up so I’ve spent significant portions of the last few weekends in warm coffee shops reading books.
I really like getting away from computers and getting into a good book but I’m aware that technology is becominging increaingly all-pervasive. I wonder what we can do to effectively let people switch off from technology when in certain places or when doing certain things. I think that’s what I’ll focus on the next time I’m in a coffee shop.
There’s been a splurge of REST vs. SOA (or WS-* vs ROA) discussion in the last couple of weeks that’s got my attention and made me think a little more deeply about it.
I really like the term ROA as opposed to REST as it makes a clearer comparison between 2 design styles rather than a design style (SOA) and what is generally an HTTP specific implementation (HTTP).
It was also good to see some recognition that both design and implementation methods can co-exist, that there’s not one xOA to best deal with all situations.
I agree that the Axis2 POX/HTTP stuff probably shouldn’t be labelled REST as there’s nothing there to ensure that your ‘Axis2 REST’ services actually are. Sanjiva thinks we just provide the gun and users pull the trigger. It seems to me more like we’re sticking a label of ‘water pistol’ on a gun and then blaming the user when someone gets hurt.
However, the suggestion that Apache doesn’t ‘get REST‘ is miles off. Apache Abdera looks really promising in the Atom space and the latest REST support in Apache CXF looks really, really easy to use.
So after a lot of investigation, where am I? Where I think everyone who isn’t trying to sell one of these should be. On the fence, evaluating the right technology to use for each individual scenario.
Having been involved on the margins on the ’standards micro-culture’ for just over a year I recognise all that Umit and William have to say about it. There are a number of conversations we have over and over again, and strategies that some participants can be seen to engage in… in fact I’ve picked up on some of the more effective ones and have been experimenting with them in other contexts.
I think the next step might be a game of standards bingo… I wonder how many of them I’ll tick off on Monday.
A couple of years ago I saw a really fun fringe show in the Bedlam called ‘Scotland is a great big evil face’ by The Martians. It included a number of really catchy songs. They were really fun to have in the theatre for the fringe and have, I believe, been around a bit since. When I was up for Fran and Mindys Ceilidh, I even bumped into Gerry and had a brief chat.
Completely unrelatedly I was listening to my favourite (only, but I do like it) Boston based podcast at the weekend, Accident Hash. At the end there was a very familiar song.. and when I scrolled back and listened to what was being said… there it was… ‘here is the Martians’. In fact when I re-listened (here) and paid more attention there was a song from them earlier in the show.
Wow. Such a small world.
I went out for a couple of drinks last night with George and Roisin to the Black Boy. For those not in the know, it’s a great pub in Winchester, with a great atmosphere and an interesting mix of people.
However, getting up this morning I could smell the smoke in my clothes from the other side of the room. Yuk.
It’s a controversial issue I know, and it’ll probably lessen the atmosphere in the Black Boy, but I’m looking forward to July 1st 2007 when I won’t smell of smoke after coming out of a pub.
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