Re: FYI, tag election links

On 12/13/2012 7:13 PM, Eric J. Bowman wrote:
>> >AWWW is outdated and should be revised or withdrawn.
>> >
> As I didn't know about AWWW until another developer used it to explain
> something to me, I assume I'm not the only one who's introduced other
> developers to it.  I've used it to explain, or justify, implementation
> details when handing projects over to, or consulting with, younger
> developers.  Pretty much required, given my penchant for conneg.

Thank you, Eric. I'm glad that AWWW is proving useful as an educational 
tool for you. I have used it for similar purposes and found it and some of 
the TAG findings to be very valuable pedagogic tools. The TAG only 
occasionally hears such anecdotes, and it's really hard to judge what 
impact documents like AWWW are having. My guess: much more than the harsher 
critics would think, and much less than we'd like.

I think both quotes above have carry important messages: the TAG has so far 
failed to deliver for Web Apps anything like what we did for the 
traditional Web of documents. That's a major failing IMO. We tried for 
several years, but couldn't get it done. It's fine with me to try again, as 
long as we can figure out some different way that will yield useful results 
in bounded time.

I think it's also true that AWWW continues to be very valuable for the 
things it does cover well, e.g. the pitfalls of URI aliases, and the 
advantages of assigning URIs to make things linkable (all still true in a 
world of Web Apps, I think). So, my personal opinion is like yours: we 
should build on and update AWWW, not scrap it. I hope that as the TAG moves 
forward we can take a balanced and careful look at what is and isn't useful 
in AWWW, and of how we can (finally) have more impact on the Web of 
applications.

Noah

Received on Friday, 14 December 2012 01:08:08 UTC