Tuesday, March 05, 2002

[John Robb's Radio Weblog] The ultimate P2P system (thanks Paul). 2:49:29 PM

[diveintomark] Joel throws a bone. Joel Spolsky: Nothing is simple. "Anyway, I don't think Extreme Programming really advocates zero design. They just say "don't do any more design than needed," which is fine. But that's not what people hear. Most programmers are looking for any excuse they can find not to do basic design before implementing features. So they latch onto the "no-design" idea like flies in a bug zapper. Dzzzzzzt!" I had a manager like this at my last job; he was totally convinced that Extreme Programming meant we could all just just in and start coding, like he always wanted to but had been taught not to. He was a cowboy coder at heart. And Joel's right; that's not what XP is all about, but those nuances get lost in translation somewhere. 2:27:15 PM

I have always had the sense that the popular press really didn't have a clue about the way the world worked. They tell technology stories that often reflect (in my view) ignorant personal biases on the part of the author and often appear to have been heavily manipulated by the subject. Nowhere has this been more true than in the coverage of the music industry and digital distribution. The reporting there has been so uniformly bad, it makes me pull my hair out -- always playing to audience. The truth of the situation, in my opinion, is that there is a very tricky issue (how do you prevent big guys from ripping off little guys while making the result something the new media consumer will want to buy) and that the two "sides" of the debate (the pro-file sharing camp and the music industry camp) are acting out of selfish interests and not out of desire to the right thing (neither should have the moral high ground). But to my point. I've really been impressed with the coverage I've seen in the weblog community -- not just that some people write insightful stuff that cuts to the heart of the matter. But also, that those views (the most carefully thought out ones) often get the most attention in the community. It's nice to see that, just because the media outlets feed people swill, doesn't mean it's what the people believe -- when they have a choice, they choice the thoughtful coverage. I guess this shouldn't be a surprise. We live in a world where the news really is controlled by an oligopoly. It used to be by necessity -- it required scale to deliver the news. Now that those pressures have been relieved, we're seeing small competitors pop up and the forces of the free market are starting to kick in to sort out the truth. 2:24:53 PM

[IBM DeveloperWorks: XML News] Ipedo database gets XML jolt (Network World) 2:07:18 PM

[80211b News] Paul Boutin files an exhaustively researched story on the state of commercial Wi-Fi, with observations on related realms: as is typical with a Boutin story, he talked to many, many people and puts together a picture on the current sporadic usage and patchiness of commercial Wi-Fi that's more complete than anything else seen to date. He's not cynical about it, obviously, but it's clear from the quotes he was able to gather that the current providers have some very hot spots in captive venues, and a lot of fairly cold spots which generate zilch. The article points towards the potential of the big boys (probably cell companies) entering the market in a big way, if only they can make up their minds to do it given their huge investment in currently incompatible, slow data rate technology. 7:39:25 AM

[Daypop Top 40] "The Teddy Borg" 7:26:51 AM

[Daypop Top 40] "The Problem With Music"  Interesting article about artists sign with music labels.   Short version -- the artists get the short end of the stick because there are hundreds of equally promising bands all trying to get their hands on record company contracts.   Sounds like the record companies employee some nasty tactics.   Still, given the basic economics situation, I'm not sure how different the outcome would be otherwise... 7:00:45 AM