Nigel McFarlane

Already There Syndrome

Written by admin on May 13, 2009

I hear the same remark from Microsoft advocates about Mozilla on Microsoft Windows over and over again: “Why would I install that? There’s already a Web browser [Internet Explorer - IE] there.” This semi-argument is so weak that few bother even to debate it. Yet it is resorted to so frequently that there is no choice but to examine it seriously.

Firstly, there isn’t a Web browser “already installed”. Someone put it there. Before the browser was “already there”, there was an operating system “already there”. Before the operating system was “there”, hardware was “there”. And before the hardware was the need for a computer by a user. All these items were put there for the needy user by a person in an IT role; that person ticked the boxes or built the master distribution that included IE. If you happen to have IE, then it’s a result of a (perhaps historical) strategy on someone’s part. Assumedly someone is responsible for that past decision. Software and hardware do not grow out of the ground like weeds.

* The starting point for all ICT equipment is a blank slate, a strategy, and a decision.

A slightly clearer way to express this objection is to say: “We do not like to layer extra software on top of a Microsoft Windows install, as it increases complexity”. At face value this may seem likely, but the management effort required to maintain any Microsoft Windows computer is widely reported to be generally high. The number of Service Packs, Hot Fixes, Security Patches, drivers, install options and configuration items is very large. Windows itself is thus a multiply installed and layered system. Any golden rule about layered complexity is well broken just by installing Windows in a functional and professional way. And for many Windows installations, there are the immediately applied further layers such as Microsoft Office (and patches and options) or “must have” tools like Acrobat Reader.

* Layering is an inescapeable overhead when maintaining Windows.

To cry about complexity in IT, however, is to find yourself without a job. Many prefer to avoid the layering interpretation of their objection. Instead, the simple statement is that it is wasteful to duplicate a software function already served by one tool with a further tool. IE, it is said, already does what Mozilla would do.

Words for Microsoft Advocates

Written by admin on May 13, 2009

Get Out Of Bed

The aversion that Microsoft advocates and supporters show for Open Source software in general and for Mozilla in particular remains a constant source of amazement. It’s common sense to put new ideas and products through a period of test and evaluation, and Open Source software is rightly tested that way. In practice though, the wall of reactive resistance held up against Mozilla and other first-rank Open Source tools (like Open Office) is excessive to say the least. There is no rational reason for this behaviour at all.

The problem with Open Source for Microsoft believers is not that it is somehow fundamentally alien. The problem is rather that Open Source software is entirely similar to Microsoft software. Nowhere is this more obvious, or more uncomfortable, than in the apples-to-apples world of Web browsers. That example represents a fine example of the tortuous logic required by Microsoft advocates to preserve their positions.

Computer Whiz and the Way they Make Money Online

Written by admin on May 5, 2009

Computers are updated from time to time. Its software is also in need of regular updates to battle out viruses and phishing activities. This is how computer manufacturers are able to make money out of their already existing and thriving business. While it is not easy to make money online especially if a computer company has a name and reputation to maintain, the process of maintaining its quality performance is always a challenge. So, why not give computer makers a break and try to appreciate what they have contributed in the modern day technology so far.

Summary

Written by admin on May 5, 2009

This essay has argued that as Web enabling software nears maturity, the matter of final standards compliance is not just a question of clean up. Standards ticks are desireable, and there are specific cases where rigid use of standards are enforceable, but there are also specific cases where rigid standards support is most undesireable.

In particular, as Web architecture items such as browsers become mature and well-understood, the need for such software to be tolerant of problematic user input increases rather than decreases. As people bandy about the software with increasing confidence, that software in turn must be resilient, responsive and forgiving. Most obviously in the area of HTML markup, but also across the full spectrum of implemented features, standards-ticks are not the ultimate end goal. There will always be new human entrants to the world of HTML and the Web, and they should not have to climb any further than entrants of years before in order to successfully express themselves.

The best built Web is in fact rather elastic: when accidentally dropped, dented, twisted or mis-stated, it somehow copes and manages to flex back into shape. That applies also to pieces of the Web – their interfaces, processing and general expectations of use. Such is the case for all mature software products, and the Web is no different.

- Nigel McFarlane

The Neurotic Weight of Coping

Written by admin on May 5, 2009

Rough treatment of standards is at odds with the absolutism of software logic. It is simple to create a tiny symbolic system inside whose confines a person can play. A Bookmark Manager is an example. But such a tiny system is not true flexibility, it merely allows a microcosm of restricted choices.

The problem of rule-breaking flexibility can only be pushed one of two ways: either the user carries the neurotic load of staying inflexibly restricted within the software’s built parameters, or the software carries the neurotic load of attempting to survive unexpected treatment that the user might visit on it. The former case may result in beautifully clean software design, but the latter case most certainly will not. Nevertheless, if people’s creativity and expression are to be supported as well as they might, the latter case, which is the status quo for the example of older HTML, is preferable.

This is no doubt a burden for those that must maintain such software, but better a burden on the willing few (or at least on the capable few) than on the unwilling majority.

Mark up For Neanderthals

Written by admin on May 5, 2009

“Mark” is not just a noun, it is also a verb. From the quill pen strokes of bearded academics to the vandal with a spray can, markup is both an action and a result. But marking up is more than this: it is fundamental creative license to express one’s own message. That is the effect of semi-literate thinking coupled with inspiration. Expressed in writing, in paint, carved on a tree, or by cutting back across a wave on a surfboard, it is to change the external world, one stroke at a time.

Such markup cannot be done by a soulless machine; it is the province of people only. Machines can only produce formatted files. It is the nature of people, in their non-electronic, non-digital, entirely organic way, to crash right across barriers they are not even aware of in order to get their message out. In the case of HTML, pages expressed in badly formed, ill-formed, invalid or just plain wrong syntax are victories of expression over technology. Such behaviour should not just be allowed, it should be encouraged and preserved, particularly for mediums such as HTML that are widely accessible and manageable by ignorant non-specialists.

Rough treatment of HTML therefore has more support in logic than the raising of standards in order that rough treatment be avoided. Symphonies of perfect HTML are still viable; but at the same time no one is excluded just because they can’t play the violin. The same should be true of other interaction methods that Web software supports.

Within Mozilla technology, human markup actions extend well beyond poorly formed HTML. Mozilla enthusiasts make their marks in the numerous small databases stored in user profiles, in stylesheets, in themes, in add-on and extensions, and in all kinds of both wise and foolish appropriations of the bundled and unbundled technologies. If Mozilla is to be a worthy piece of Web architecture it must learn to tolerate rough treatment in these areas as well as in HTML. It should not be fragile; it should not be full of arduous and Byzantine access paths.

The openness of Mozilla’s XUL/XBL tagset definition is an excellent example of a loosely managed canvas on which much can be casually and flexibly writ; the fragility of the chrome registration system is a clear counter example. It is relatively easy to bounce rudely up and down on XUL; but registering chrome requires finicky care.

The problem with arguments in favour of rough treatment is that it is all very well in principle, but in practice something must be engineered.

Cleaving the Body Politic

Written by admin on May 5, 2009

Whether the Web is defined as HTML, HTTP or the dynamic and discriminatory mouse-clicking of Web surfers, there are larger perspectives of the services that Web technology enables. We can use these larger perspectives to qualify and test how some of this rough treatment should be assessed.

At the simplest level, the Web can be seen as the exchange of documents cast in agreed formats. Document formats are produced and consumed by machines, except in the near-mythical case of “plain text”. Where no users are directly involved, it is clear that there is no excuse for failing to implement document formats – machines are quite good at rigidly specified tasks. Thus, mistreatment of HTTP headers, which are machine-crafted in all but the most extreme of environments, is justifiably viewed as an inexcusable piece of rough handling. So much for Internet Explorer. Attempting to apply this logic to HTML must fail, however, because numerous HTML documents, including this one, are still hand crafted. That means that HTML is not yet exclusively a file format.

A more expansive view of the Web is that it is a global distributed application for document management (DM), either in terms of technology or in terms of user behaviour or psychology. If this view is taken, then it follows that the built Web is a very rudimentary document manager indeed, since standards exist at the most basic levels of DM functionality only. Even RDF and OWL, the most abstract of the Web standards, say nothing about the common structures required for the numerous vertical niches within the document management field, or anything about basic change control. The document management argument is thus a “no-case-against” argument for rough handling of standards. Web browsers and servers are sufficiently primitive at document management that any advancement is water to a thirsty man. There is, from the document management point of view, no case against DHTML Web application hackery, no case against Web surfers accruing bookmark collections as large as an encyclopaedia, and no case against Web browsers being hacked, optioned and special-cased to within an inch of their lives. Such things are all required when underlying standards are so grossly inadequate from an application point of view.

There is a historic Microsoft analogy for this set of circumstances. One could not expect a modern, graphical desktop from MS-DOS: at best one could expect stop-gap tools like Sidekick and XTreePro. MS-DOS was just too primitive alone to be a full solution. The layering of Microsoft Windows 3.1 and other equally aggressive applications on top of MS-DOS, or the abandonment of DOS entirely in favour of the Apple Macintosh were the inevitable consequences. It is not unlikely that such a process will repeat itself in the case of the foetal document management functions that the currently built Web represents.

Less bleakly, some prefer to see the Web in terms of discourse. In this paradigm, the built Web is a lingua franca – a common language. The logic runs that the electronic discourse that is the Web, as facilitated by HTML, is somehow a pillar of civilisation and requires respect equal to that accorded to the courts and to football players. People must be able to communicate with each other – otherwise fragmentation, misunderstanding, woe and eventually war will be the only consequence. If there is not some minimum standard that HTML browsers require, and if Web page creators are not assisted to reach those minimum standards, then trains will no longer run on time.

There are several problems with this sort of logic, which hopes to prevent the propagation of poorly-formed HTML and perhaps also hopes to bring about the death of the MARQUEE tag and its raggedy-bottom associates.

The easiest of these problems is the supposition that a lingua franca is required. It is not. The Web is not Northern Ireland or any other equally torn state. No one is born into strife on the Web. Use of the Web is an example of joining an intentional community, whether that joining be as a supporter, an opponent, or merely as a garrulous ratbag. The conditions for intentional communities are well established: if you don’t like it, leave; if everyone doesn’t like it, the community falls apart. There is no need for a de jure common tongue in such places, because the surfer enters into precisely the dialog desired, with whomever it is desireable to dialog with. The Web can be arbitrarily partitioned into as many such intentional communities as you might care to identify, each of which might have their own perspective on HTML. In any event, the clashes of ideals and flame wars that occur from time to time on the Internet are testimony enough that a few HTML tags are not enough to ensure civilised (or normative) behaviour of any kind. So civilisation building, even of electronic civilisations, is not sufficient to support raising standards of HTML use.

A far more serious problem with the argument for quality-HTML-as-discourse revolves around markup. The markup concept is more than sufficient reason to ensure that rough treatment of HTML will and should continue for a long time.

Perceived Crimes Against Technology

Written by admin on May 5, 2009

A standard that interworks with nothing is hardly a standard worth having; it is rather more like a fetish. A useful standard is used by two or more agents and agreement on the standard is central to their interworking. To misuse or poorly implement a standard is to handle that standard roughly, if it is handled at all.

Within the world of the built Web, there are some well-known examples of rough handling. Mis-use or failure to use the Content-Type HTTP header, thus mis-representing the contents of Web documents is one. Ill-formed or invalid content inside XML and XHTML documents is another; so-called “Tag Soup” is the equivalent crime for poorly formed HTML documents. Use of features that erode the maximum utility of Web pages, such as dynamic animation of div and span tags, which can ruin accessibility, is a more contentious example. And then there are aberrant, or at least highly novel phenomena, such as the MARQUEE tag.

Such issues cross all aspects of the Web: the software tools that manage the disposition of content, like browsers and servers, the creation of content itself, the uses to which browser-like tools are put, and the behaviour of users and technologists as they handle the tools in an attempt to meet their needs. For example, is it really appropriate to build forms and menu application interfaces out of HTML? HTML is a standard with at best rudimentary forms and menu support, a standard intended for HyperText documents, not record management.

The beauty and simplicity of well-argued standards, or even imperfect ones, and the consequent software is not well served by these kinds of exceptions. In some conservative sense, neither is any kind of Greater Order served. Such exceptions are not crimes, however. Crimes can only be perpetuated against people and against those with anthropomorphic traits, like pets. What, then, are we to think about such rough-handling exceptions?

Words for The Mozilla Community

Written by admin on May 5, 2009

Markup is What People Do

The suite of HTML standards developed by the W3C are well established, and are today in real danger of full support by implementations that are of practical use. Against the sense of nearing completeness is a general restlessness, particularly evident amongst key specialists, about the apparently unsatisfactory way in which these carefully crafted markup standards and their matching software is being hamfistedly used by various user groups. In this essay I argue that attempts to mandate any kind of standards compliance across the built Web is useful only in special cases. There are other, overriding concerns.

Forward-Thinking Government Roles in Open Source

Written by admin on April 28, 2009

Open Source software provides second-generation offerings of well-understood ICT architectures and componentry. For government organisations with any experience of first-generation software, such as UNIX or Microsoft Windows desktops, Open Source represents a chance to capitalise on existing experience without falling behind supplier-pushed advancements. In fact, the open and public nature of Open Source software means that there is little need to play catchup with specific supplier-pushed technology at all. This represents, in effect, a breathing space for government ICT, and that space is a fertile source of new government roles.

* The cost reductions, duplication and stability of existing infrastructure by Open Source software and related hardware mean that ICT activities within a government organisation can be reduced in favour of more emphasis on core organisational goals. For the near future at least, the technology blow to organisational systems is muted by the Open Source change, which is a simple replacement-for-equal-benefit strategy. This change is not locked to a vendor-engineered forced migration for the purposes of maintaining a profit stream. It does not require another conceptual leap by anyone except for a few technicians.
* The public nature of Open Source software allows agencies and utilities to form linkages that pool and exchange ICT experience in new ways. There is less compartmentalisation by supplier, since there is extensive supplier duplication and transparency. Dialog about ICT technology can be forward-looking rather than merely reactive to supplier announcements. Just as there are best practices in Occupational Health and Safety, a matter of individual and collective concern to all government organisations, so too public Open Source software enables dialog about best practices in ICT. Such public and publically owned discussions are empowering for organisations that might otherwise be isolated by the need to spend energy keeping up with a single supplier.
* As a publicly owned asset, Open Source software is a building block of civilisation, and one that is increasingly central to modern day life. There is no doubt that this asset will be subject to government policies that will be implemented in turn by suitable agencies. Whether it be educational institutions building intellectual capacity, regulatory bodies discriminating the worthy from the dangerous, or technology mediated service delivery, Open Source software is a growing aspect of the built and intellectual environment, an aspect whose public issues naturally devolve to government to address.

In summary, this article argues that the emphasis on suppliers for strategic technology leadership is decreasing in the face of Open Source software. As Open source software grows, as all indicators say that it must, the benefit to government organisations is an increasing freedom to determine the nature and scope of their relationships with the ICT technology they use.

- Nigel McFarlane.