Re: Paul Graham about Web 2.0

Hi all!

Well, replying to myself I'd like to take this stand and point out some 
problems I found with Paul Graham's "Web 2.0" essay. I'll probably put it in 
my blog eventually, but meanwhile I'd like to receive your comments.

Here goes:

<<<<<<<<<
One ingredient of its meaning is certainly Ajax, which I can still only just 
bear to use without scare quotes. Basically, what "Ajax" means is "Javascript 
now works." And that in turn means that web-based applications can now be 
made to work much more like desktop ones.
>>>>>>>>>

Ajax, the way I understand it does not mean "Javascript now works.". AJAX 
stadnds for "Asynchronous Javascript and XML" and means that the JavaScript 
on the web browser queries the server for extra data using XmlHttpRequest or 
whatever. As far as JavaScript sophistication is concerned there's, in 
growing order:

1. Plain XHTML and CSS.
2. Non-DHTML JavaScript. (for form validation, etc.)
3. DHTML (= Dynamic HTML) JavaScript. (where the content of the HTML elements 
on the page is modified)
4. AJAX.

Now, many Web problem domains don't need the functionality given by 2, 3, 
and/or 4. Some of them perhaps can benefit from it, but will work pretty well 
without it. 

<<<<<<<<<<<
At Y Combinator we advise all the startups we fund never to lord it over 
users. Never make users register, unless you need to in order to store 
something for them. If you do make users register, never make them wait for a 
confirmation link in an email; in fact, don't even ask for their email 
address unless you need it for some reason.
>>>>>>>>>>>

One reason people like to use an E-mail handshake is because it prevents spam. 
It's not a fool-proof solution, and there are other ways to help fight spam. 
Another reason for that is that generally people forget to visit sites, while 
they don't forget to check their E-mails. To quote a certain distinguished 
Israeli FOSSer:

<<<
If it isn't present in my E-mail, it doesn't exist. And if E-mail says one 
thing, and the entire world says something else - then E-mail will prevail.
>>>

Another good things about an E-mail handshake, is that your users are less 
susceptible to mis-spellings in entering their E-mail address.

Note that one should still design it correctly. I am now completely locked out 
out of http://www.stage.co.il/ because my previous E-mail provider dropped 
the email that they sent me.

<<<<<<<<<
iTunes is Web 2.0ish in this sense. Finally you can buy individual songs 
instead of having to buy whole albums. The recording industry hated the idea 
and resisted it as long as possible. But it was obvious what users wanted, so 
Apple flew under the labels. [4] Though really it might be better to describe 
iTunes as Web 1.5. Web 2.0 applied to music would probably mean individual 
bands giving away DRMless songs for free.
>>>>>>>>>

Many bands are already giving DRM-less songs without charge. Some of the 
popular contemporary artists (or the record labels that contract them) still 
resist the idea, but I expect to see more and more songs available online in 
the future. I still think music stores (without DRM of course) are a good 
idea, because they concentrate all the music from the various bands and 
records labels in one place, and allow people to download it, while paying 
for stuff. This is instead of hunting the entire Internet for them, or using 
P2P services, which require more time to get good results from.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Odd as it might sound, we tell startups that they should try to make as little 
money as possible. If you can figure out a way to turn a billion dollar 
industry into a fifty million dollar industry, so much the better, if all 
fifty million go to you. Though indeed, making things cheaper often turns out 
to generate more money in the end, just as automating things often turns out 
to generate more jobs.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Just wanted to note that I like Graham's note that "automating things often 
turns out to generate more jobs.". This is a direct anti-thesis to what Joel 
Spolsky said about open-source in a podcast interview with him several months 
ago. He said something that programmers can use open source code to 
facilitate creating solutions, and while they have an easier time and like 
it, there would be less demand for programmers. I disagree with Joel (and 
agree with Paul Graham) for several reasons:

1. Open source code still requires programmers to make a good use of. More 
powerful, cheap, frameworks means more demand for programmers.

2. The same can be said on non-FOSS or not-entirely-FOSS software. If I can 
buy a library for $500 that will cost me a lot of time and money to develop 
on my own, then again my life is easier.

3. I'd like to see good, cheap solutions for old problems, so programmers can 
say that they can solve these problems easily and move on to solving new 
problems. While I cannot prove it, I don't think the human race is ever going 
to run out of interesting problems to solve, and solving the same problems 
time and again, (usually in a sub-optimal and ad-hoc fashion) is not 
beneficial.

<<<<<<<<<<<<
The ultimate target is Microsoft. What a bang that balloon is going to make 
when someone pops it by offering a free web-based alternative to MS Office. 
[5] Who will? Google? They seem to be taking their time. I suspect the pin 
will be wielded by a couple of 20 year old hackers who are too naive to be 
intimidated by the idea. (How hard can it be?)
>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yet more classic Paul Graham hubris. (similar to what I pointed he said about 
being able to take Oracle single-handed). Writing an office replacement is 
hard. It took Microsoft and similar companies many years to write and perfect 
their office suites, with lots of brilliant, productive programmers on their 
teams. It is still taking a lot of time for Sun and IBM to write 
OpenOffice.org.

Arguably OOo and similar office suites are written in C and C++ and one can 
use languages like JavaScript on the client side and Perl/etc. on the server 
if they're AJAXed. But a fraction of a large number is still a large number.

And then there are the technical difficulties of doing it with AJAX as of 
2005: the limitations of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, the limitations of HTTP, 
etc. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying that it might be, or the end 
result might be disappointing. There are some future or not yet commonplace 
technologies or ideas that seem promising, [1] but one cannot yet depend on 
them yet.

------------------

Despite all that, Paul Graham's essay was very nice, and as I noted 
previously, I really liked it.

Regards,

        Shlomi Fish

[1] - Technologies or ideas such as client-side Perl/Pythone/etc.,  Compiled 
JavaScript, Mozilla's XUL or any other true user-interface language, SVG, 
XForms 2.0, CSS 3.0, XHTML 2.0, etc.

On Tuesday 22 November 2005 18:34, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> See:
>
> http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html
>
> Also see:
>
> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/10/21.html
>
> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/11/03b.html
>
> Paul Graham explains what he thinks Web 2.0 is, and why he doesn't like the
> term. The essay is very nice and all. One thing that I'd liked there and
> that I can relate to:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      shlomif-ik1l9ssToec+JF/nGntIXQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/

95% of the programmers consider 95% of the code they did not write, in the
bottom 5%.


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