d.Construct 2005 -Thoughts
I really enjoyed d.Construct 2005 it was thought provoking and interesting.
Andy Budd’s opening speech was well balanced asking us all to look through the hype and buzzwords to find the real value of Web 2.0. I liked his idea that what we are seeing now is not a new technology, but the coming of age of many ideas which have been around for a while. This was well illustrated with the analogy that, “the steam engine was a 1st century Greek toy, but was only started to be used in anger during the industrial revolution”.
It was also interesting the amount of time he invested in warning about not making the same old mistakes. There does seem to be a growing unease about standards, and usability being thrown out for unconventional Ajax led UIs.
I got to spend some time talking with Stuart Langridge who did a slot on DOM Scripting & Ajax. Stuart demonstrated how these techniques could be used to unobtrusively enhance the functionality of a site. The main thing I took away from his talk was that these types of enhancements can be small independent elements of a larger page design. DOM Scripting & Ajax can be used lightly, but with great effect.
Cory Doctorow andBen Metcalfe talks have left me with a whole series of questions about copyright, IP and the commercial use of API’s and RSS. Many organizations and companies have started to evangelise non-commercial reuse of content and services through API’s. These services have unclear usage policies, provide no service level agreements and some even carry IP issues for external developers. At the moment these services are great for hacking my blog, but are of no use for my day job. As an industry we need a clear community owned legal framework for the commercial use of syndicated content or services (CC for pay-as-you-go API’s).
Some good round ups from Tim Beadle