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A crisis year for web standards

Lee January 7th, 2008

Recent news from the web standards arena has not been pleasant to my ears. The HTML5 group has rejected open media standards. Andy Clarke has called for the CSS Working Group to be disbanded, while others want to drop the W3C altogether.

Do standards hold us back from innovation, or do they provide the discipline to keep the web from shattering into a million proprietary fiefdoms? Through the years of bringing discipline into the programming field, many spoke harshly against the new restrictions on our “style”, and only now, so many years later, can we see how the discipline saved programming, turning it from an arcane art to a true science, a discipline, and gave it the ability to handle the truly large projects that are so common today.

We could never have these incredible operating systems, Windows, Mac, and Linux, bloated though they may seem, without the involvement of incredible disciplines to define interfaces between modules. We could never have all these open source free applications without the disciplines that allow the coordination of work by multiple people, separated by time and space, to work together on fantastically complex projects. If you doubt my words, go read Fred Brooks’ “The Mythical Man Month”, written back in 1975. It is well worth the read today.

Some folks see the disciplining process as an affront to their own personal creativity, but the truly creative among us know that discipline is the key to real creativity. Read any of Ansel Adams’ books about photographic creativity and you will find a strict discipline of methods and procedures underlying all his wonderful work. The beauty of modern architectural miracles could never coalesce without the structural engineering that gives it strength.

If the web is ever to live up to its true promise, it will be the disciplines of standards that will lead it to those fields of dreams. To abandon the process now because it is slow and difficult, or because it is not going in just the direction you personally would have it go, is to betray the dream, the promise of an incredible means of bringing people together, and ultimately of promoting peace among all people and nations.

Just one man’s opinion,

__________________

Lee Eschen
Ashgrove Visual Arts
~~~
“Vision without technique is blind.” –George Lepp

The War in Iraq

Lee September 28th, 2007

There has been much discussion, and not a little acrimony, over the US decision to prosecute war in Iraq for the purpose of removing Sadaam Hussein from power and breaking Iraq’s ties with international Islamic terrorism. Many claim that the US had not the right to do as it did, that the UN inspections were working, that Iraq was not responsible for 9/11, and so on and so on….. And the unkindest cut of all has been the accusation that the US is only after oil. Even one of our own generals, a candidate for the office of President, has said that the United States is becoming the colonial power of the 21st century. It seems that they all forget that Sadaam was in daily violation of UN mandates and that US pilots bore the brunt of his anger each time a missle was fired at US fighters patrolling the UN mandated no-fly zones.

Much has also been said about the ongoing progress of the war in Iraq, that it was badly planned, badly executed, and is “a quagmire” after the manner of Vietnam. What is not being said, occasionally for good, protective reasons, is the astounding progress that has been made in restoring freedom, productivity, education, healthcare, and infrastructure to a country and peoples emerging from 40 years of oppression.

The infrastructure has been largely restored, though the work continues to this day. Schools are open. Men and women, boys and girls are attending school and learning freely, some for the first time in their lives. Men and women are voting in free elections, proudly displaying their purple thumbs that marks them as having voted. Men and women are participating in a brand new democratic government.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union the US has become the only remaining superpower. Although China does present a formidable profile, her empahsis has been strongly directed into economic channels and continued growth seems far more important to her than international confrontation. Is the US abusing the power it holds in the world of today?

It is my considered opinion that the US has every right to look after its own interests in the world. We have earned that right with the blood of our soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen who, twice in the 20th century , rescued Europe from German Imperialism, and also rescued China and others in the Pacific basin from Japanese Imperialism, and kept nothing for ourselves. The Soviets put Eastern Europe behind an Iron Curtain. Western Europe was returned to its rightful place in the world community. Why does the world keep expecting the US to behave like 19th century European Imperialists? We never have and I doubt that we ever will.

I firmly believe that foreign policy, including war, cannot be conducted by polls and public opinion. That was our big mistake in Vietnam. We were there to prevent the spread of Communism, an honorable calling in my opinion, though many on the left might disagree. We won on the battlefield, but we lost at the Paris Peace Talks, because the politicians were afraid of public opinion. And, in so doing, we dishonored the sacrifice of all those who gave their lives to keep a people free, permitted the deaths of thousands of South Vietnamese who had trusted the US to be true to its word, and left Southeast Asia wide open for Pol Pot’s killing fields. To leave Iraq with the job incomplete would be to repeat the same failed policies, and result in a similar outcome.

Read more on Iraq in Victor Davis Hanson’s column “Betting on Defeat? It’s far from a safe bet.”

I’m baaaack!

Lee September 23rd, 2007

Well, I’m finally back. I don’t know what happened to the first iteration of this blog. It just seemed to disappear off the face of the Earth, but at the same time, some aspects of my blog setup were still in place. All the posts were gone. The selected theme was gone. It seems like it was a problem with the MySQL database interaction. Ah, well, just one of those things.

I’ve changed the theme and a few other details. I hope you enjoy it.

Lee