Re: its name

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 12:45, Danny Ayers <danny.ayers@gmail.com> wrote:
> People can learn can learn things like "TV" (without having a full
> grasp of electromagnetic theory) or even "ADSL" (and you know the
> rest).

Yes, it's relatively easy to teach people things when you've got a
simple moniker (TV, ADSL, website) attached to something they care
about (people wants moving pictures at home, they want internet at
home, they want to browse websites). But going from "a website" to "a
specific resource with a specific protocol" is dead in the water.

>> Huh? Richard Dawkins?
> Yup, him.

What's the problem with him?

>> I think you've got too much faith in the human capability of grasping
>> something they don't care about.
>
> People didn't care about tv until they saw something that manifested the name.

Huh? People didn't care about TV until they cared about TV. The name
is also different in different languages, just like a car (which is
short for 'automobile cart', or, in Norwegian, 'bil' which is the last
bit of 'automobile'). This discussion is slowly going from memes to
lingustics.

> Would you agree that a URI is a name for a thing? How is that so
> conceptually more difficult than ordering a pizza?

Well, for starts, I don't agree humanly. Technically we're in
agreement, of course, but as a human being that's probably a few steps
away from knowing jack about REST or HTTP(S) or other protocols, I'd
say two things ;

 - a website
 - a web page

The latter is the human form of a resource with a http(s) URI address.
I don't think there's a better way.

> I take your point about caring about stuff, but we're wasting our time
> if we don't think we're doing something that people might care about.
> Or doing a PhD. mileage varies.

But people *don't* care about this, only technologists do. People care
about websites and web pages, but they don't care about the protocol,
and, personally, I think that if we were to collectively try to remedy
this situation we'll do more harm than good. Let the generations of
technological literacy do it for you, because this is akin to fighting
windmills.


Kind regards,

Alex
-- 
 Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
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Received on Thursday, 8 April 2010 03:11:38 UTC