This essay is a manifesto about software for collaboration — why the world’s future depends on it, why the current crop of tools isn’t good enough, and what programmers can and must do about it.
A Manifesto for Collaborative Tools
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I think this manifesto is really valuable.
I agree with the people-centrc view that I oppose to the currently and frequently application-centric view. But I push the development one step further (forward or backward as you want): what is the ultimate goal for using computers ? Processing information (or in computer language, data). User is not interested by the working of an application but in the fact that a task is performed. With such a view, information/data are no more closed in an application context and become easier to process, to exchange or to link.
Finally, I have just a remark about melting XML and RDF: it does not work very well due to the tree structure of XML face to the free graph structure of RDF. It work better with relational DB or, maybe, a new language must be invented. XML has shown to be real powerful for documentation while RDF fits better with knowledge representation.
Great article.
> Finally, I have just a remark about melting XML and RDF: it does not work very well due to the tree structure of XML face to the free graph structure of RDF. It work better with relational DB or, maybe, a new language must be invented. XML has shown to be real powerful for documentation while RDF fits better with knowledge representation.
Isn’t RDF just XML as well?
The author seems to be making a mountain out of a mole hill. It’s not as if software can solve a problem such as poor communication by creating the ultimate collaboration software. If a person doesn’t know how to use “to, too, or two” correctly in a sentence, what difference does better software make when the basics for effectively communicating with others just isn’t there. All your instant messaging, cell phoning, 24/7, anywhere, anytime stuff is moot. I’d rather see money spent on better education.
Isn’t education just a data propagation central? Designed to push old data through the network nodes for the whole purpose of the complex feedback loop we call progess?
Speding time optimizing the data transportation layer is money spent on education.