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A-ha! Or, I mean, AHAH. Keith Devens describes:

The idea is, it's basically Ajax, but instead of grabbing arbitrary XML and processing it on the client-side with Javascript or XSLT and inserting things into the DOM, you just grab bits of (X)HTML from the server and inject them directly into your page. So, the client side does much less logic and merely needs to say "replace the content in the element with this ID with the (X)HTML at this U
Slightly longer discussion here: AJAX vs. AHAH.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Since most AJAX applications (webpages?) seem to be constructed in such a way that the client (the javascript on the web page) and server parts are both under the control of the same designers, you don't really need the layer of abstraction provided by XML (over just pulling the blobs out of a database and wrapping them in HTML.) If the server didn't know how the client would format the data then the XML steps would be necessary. But does this ever happen with in AJAX setups? I like the simplicity of AHAH.


- jim 12-31-2005 2:56 am [link] [add a comment]

M.I.T. has put many video lectures on line under an open Creative Commons license (I think the plan is to put *everything* on line for free, but I don't know how close they are to that goal.) Here's one that looks interesting to me: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - Video Lectures by Hal Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman:

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs has been MIT's introductory pre-professional computer science subject since 1981. It emphasizes the role of computer languages as vehicles for expressing knowledge and it presents basic principles of abstraction and modularity, together with essential techniques for designing and implementing computer languages. This course has had a worldwide impact on computer science curricula over the past two decades. The accompanying textbook by Hal Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, and Julie Sussman is available for purchase from the MIT Press, which also provides a freely available on-line version of the complete textbook.

These twenty video lectures by Hal Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman are a complete presentation of the course, given in July 1986 for Hewlett-Packard employees, and professionally produced by Hewlett-Packard Television. The videos have been used extensively in corporate training at Hewlett-Packard and other companies, as well as at several universities and in MIT short courses for industry.

- jim 12-31-2005 1:03 am [link] [add a comment]

Oh yeah, almost forgot. I saw a Nokia 770 last night for the first time. Even better in person than I thought it would be. Very polished looking and feeling device. Much smaller than you might think with a very nice bright screen (overall much smaller than, say, a PSP but with almost as big of a screen.) Not sure what to call it though. Web tablet? I guess that's it. Touch screen, WiFi, and it runs Linux. Geeks seem very intrigued but I wonder who else would buy such a thing?

I guess if you had a desktop computer in a home office situation but then also wanted to surf the web and check email while not in the office (which I guess for most people pretty much means while watching tv,) then this would definitely be something to look at.

I just wish they could somehow get a keyboard attached without making it any larger or less elegant. But that's just me. I'm pretty keyboard-centric.

Anyway, I was interested before and now that I've seen it I am even more intrigued. I hope this is a product they continue to develop.
- jim 12-31-2005 12:33 am [link] [add a comment]

Long time readers will remember I used to get a little worked up about the issue of Trusted Computing - "they're going to make general purpose computers illegal!" - and although I finally decided, years ago, that it doesn't really matter, I think that conclusion was a little optimistic. It does matter, and this stuff is still happening, and it will be a net loss for everyone if "they" get their way, even if it's nice to have an argument ready for why "we" will eventually win no matter what.

In any case, to revisit the subject, Tim Bray (respected software engineer and now Sun bigwig) takes on the Trusted Computing Group in this interesting article Selling Art:

Increasingly, the products of artists are digital; thus subject to essentially-free copying and sharing. Artists, just like accountants and ambassadors, need to get paid. How best to arrange this?
Nice refresher course if nothing else. And it really is still happening. Wikipedia, as usual, has great info on Trusted Computing, and if you're a real glutton, here's +4 rated comments from a recent slashdot thread (actually some good stuff in there,) on Intel's plans to add this technology to their next chipsets which are due real soon now.
- jim 12-30-2005 6:38 pm [link] [add a comment]

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