15 January 2006

Compiled over the last few weeks, here's a random list of some subjects I'd love to see covered in XTech 2006. There's now only three weeks left of the call for participation -- so it's definitely time get that proposal in! Mail me if you have any questions.

• OpenDocument vs. Microsoft Office Open XML (am I the only one annoyed by how this format is abbreviated as "Open XML"?)
• Ruby on Rails 1.0
• Firefox 1.5, including its many new features for developers. I loved the idea from Tristan Nitot that extensions are a way to keep Firefox successful. There's a lot of potential here. Anybody want to attend a tutorial on making Firefox extensions?
• W3C Rich Web Clients Activity
• XSLT 2.0 adoption and implementation--anyone but Saxon?
• The Web Desktop. I was incredibly interested in this post of Miguel de Icaza's. For a long time I've felt RDF could hold the desktop together, data-wise, but he also proposes that HTTP and web services could do a similar thing. I suspect these are two strands of development that go hand in hand.
• Design, usability and patterns for AJAX web applications.
• Open Content Alliance
• RSS and Atom: despite the release of Atom, RSS continues to grow down its own path. I reckon it's about time to sort out where each are going, and what they're best for.
• XSL-FO: I use this technology regularly for preparing PDFs with RenderX, and the specification itself is mature. It seems time to take stock of XSL-FO and where it might go in future.

Submit your proposal here: XTech 2006 Call for Participation. XTech will be held 16-19 May 2006, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Seems I despaired too soon about not being able to get good-looking fonts in Emacs. Thanks to Duncan Mak I've been able to compile and install an Emacs with anti-aliased fonts on Ubuntu. Here's the recipe:

• Get the XFT_JHD_BRANCH of CVS Emacs, see XftGnuEmacs on the Emacs wiki, and this page from Deling Ren.
• Get a further patch, from this mailing list post
• Get the emacs-snapshot-debian directory from this arch repository and use it as the debian directory inside the Emacs source tree

Then I had to edit out the build instructions for the -nox variant of Emacs, as it didn't build properly, and to be sure, added this to the Emacs-gtk confflags section of debian/rules :

  emacs_gtk_confflags += --with-xft=yes

After that, fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage -b in the source directory, and some time later, Emacs packages with anti-aliased fonts. There are some limitations: you need to set the font in your ~/.Xresources file like this:

  Emacs*font: Monospace-8

You may also want to fiddle with the Xft.dpi and Xft.hinting X properties to get the fonts to match your desktop environment. OK, so it's a bit of effort, but worth it. Hopefully this patch will mature and make its way into future Linux distributions.

Firefox extensions The release of Firefox 1.5 has awakened my interest in the browser, and a few extensions can make life easier.

View Rendered Source Chart

Really handy for a structured view of an HTML page's source. The big advantage is that is displays generated source too, perfect for figuring out AJAX applications.

Foxpose

Sheer eye candy. Thumbnail all your tabbed pages into one page.

Del.icio.us

Browser button for working with the del.icio.us bookmarks site. I've been reluctant to use remote bookmarks before, this extension might just push me over the edge. Really well thought-out integration with the browser.

Rails in Emacs Seeing as I'm not quite prepared to switch to OS X just in order to get TextMate, I figured it was time again to play with my editing environment. Pages from InVisible Blog and Scott Barron give a lot of tips as to the current state of play with Rails and Emacs. I've now got a reasonably pleasant setup, though I wasn't inclined to go the whole way to running the ECB IDE inside Emacs. On Ubuntu, the packages you are looking for are: speedbar eieio semantic ruby-elisp mmm-mode. I also found pabbrev a very handy interface for tab completion. The future for Ruby and Emacs is looking hopeful. I learned that a proper Ruby grammar for the semantic package is being worked on, which will enable class browsing and intelligent completion. I am still disappointed that there's no version of Emacs that uses Xft or Pango for anti-aliased font rendering. To get sharp fonts, I still need to use a bitmap font like misc-fixed. If I were in the business of offering bounties for open source development, dragging Emacs into the GTK2/Pango era would be the biggest one. Checking the mailing lists indicates that Pango is not suitable for Emacs, but no alternative scheme ever seems to bear fruit. Yet if Aquamacs can do it... If somebody came along with a decent TextMate-a-like for GNOME, I'd pay good money for it. I've never been really happy with an editor since Cygnus Ed. Hallski and I keep talking about this, and only just manage to resist wasting months of time on trying to write one ourselves.

Since interviewing the creator of Ruby on Rails, David Heinemeier Hansson, I've been thinking a little more about what he calls "opinionated software." That handy little phrase seems to sum up what attracts me to a lot of technology, at all levels. What I like Free software--it's not really economics that drew me to free software, but the principles and aims. When you release or use free software, you're exercising your right to free speech and adding your voice to an argument. Desktop environments--GNOME 2.0: The move from GNOME 1.0 to version 2.0 was highly opinionated (Mac users, think OS 9 to OS X). Complexity of user interface was thrown out in favour of sensible defaults. Web standards--CSS, RDF, XHTML: not only is there a right way to do things, but it turns out to be better too! I don't automatically fall in love with everything that emerges from the W3C, but some things are so obviously the right way it's impossible not to love them--warts and all. Muine music player--this player throws out the paraphernalia of iTunes clones and gets you close to the music. Queue, play. What I want to do. Epiphany web browser--a simple text bar does for bookmark lookup, search and URLs. The bookmarks work like del.icio.us tags. Despite the lure of Firefox extensions, simplicity and efficiency keeps me with Epiphany. Make friends and enemies The thing about opinions is that people are inclined to disagree with them. Opinions won't please everybody and, being opinionated, you will never carry everybody with you. But opinions give you something with which to scythe through indifference. In both my writing and software development work taking a particular stance enables me to create interest, and gives direction to my projects. I tend to get bored easily, and if I'm bored, then my readers and users will never make it. Being opinionated in software development is easier when there's a strong leader, or it's a one-person project. It's more of a dilemma if you're running a free software project with multiple contributors. Such projects need such contributions, but run a risk of losing focus and style. I think that there we need to be brave again. If being opinionated means losing potential users, it also means losing potential contributors. Opinions help in dealing with users, too. It's obvious that the mere act of listening to users isn't good enough. They often won't say what they mean, or their requests mask a deeper issue. How often have you given your boss exactly what he asked for, to find it wasn't what he wanted? A combination of reading-between-the-lines and having opinions helps cut a way through the noise of user feedback. Stirring the pot Here are a few wishes for some free software projects that I want to see succeed further, but which really need to get opinionated to be effective. These projects aren't failing, but they're not reaching the potential I know is there. Each of them are infrastructural in some way, and that's probably where the temptation to avoid being opinionated is strongest. But here's the genius: the rewards of being opinionated here are high. Ruby on Rails is the existence proof.

• Beagle, live search technology for GNOME. Needs to decide where its primary use will be, and get on and hit the 1.0 point for that use only. Choose one or two neat applications for integration, and be so utterly cool that every other app author flocks to integrate too.
• Synchronization. First MultiSync, then OpenSync, have rumbled on for ages, without ever being truly effective for any particular device. My take: choose a few "must-have" target devices--say, iPods and Nokia phones--and make them work completely. Nearly-but-not-quite pleases nobody.
• Mono. Mono's great, but where's the story? There's loads of potential in the people and the ideas behind the project, but playing catchup with Microsoft isn't very inspiring. Early projects like Muine helped Mono's cachet here, but we need more. My personal favourite option would have been a completely free alternative to ASP.NET for web applications. (I've seen a project called MonoRail, but don't know if it's the one...)

What's better? A handful of users with the "right" idea about how fundamentally important you are to everything, or loads of users who only see a portion of the capabilities of a project? Copy the experts It may seem like cheating to copy Apple's lead, but a lot of what they've done in OS X is to take a stand on what's useful and not. On many occasions this has inconvenienced people, but it's not eroded that special lure that Apple products hold. There's not harm in asking "What have Apple done?" with some of our projects. Another poster-child for being opinionated is Ubuntu Linux. Technically, it's only marginally better than other Linux distributions. Strategically, it's miles ahead. Its founder, Mark Shuttleworth, had very solid opinions about where Ubuntu should go, and pursued them. Over time, these have pervaded the product itself, but at the start it was the message and the style that made the difference. Opinions not expressed are rarely effective.

Since giving XTech 2006 the tagline "Building Web 2.0", I've received a few questions as to how wise this was. The Web 2.0 label has been accused in some quarters of being a vague, marketing-oriented, term. Perhaps an attempt to kickstart a new bubble. I was going to write further, defending my choice: that, practically speaking, Web 2.0 encapsulates a combination of technologies and practices driving the web forward. Yes, it's a label of convenience, but the implementation trends are real. The maturation of XML, a revival in browser technology, a willingness to share data openly and new web development frameworks. Just as I embarked on distilling these thoughts into a fuller form, Paul Graham published an excellent essay on Web 2.0. In it he analyses the Web 2.0 term:

Does "Web 2.0" mean anything? Till recently I thought it didn't, but the truth turns out to be more complicated. Originally, yes, it was meaningless. Now it seems to have acquired a meaning. And yet those who dislike the term are probably right, because if it means what I think it does, we don't need it.

So what's the reasoning that means we don't need the term? Graham writes: "Web 2.0 means using the web the way it's meant to be used." There's nothing fundamentally new, but there is a groundswell of understanding of what's been there all along. For me, that's a wonderful encapsulation of both current web trends and my aspirations for XTech. "Web 2.0" is a just a handy label for this. "The Web as it was meant to be used" will strike a chord with many web practitioners today--whether it's sensible use of web services with REST, improving user interaction in web design, or open semantics and data interchange. If you're involved in using the web as it's meant to be used, consider submitting an XTech proposal.

Compiled over the last few weeks, here's a random list of some subjects I'd love to see covered in XTech 2006. There's now only three weeks left of the call for participation -- so it's definitely time get that proposal in! Mail me if you have any questions.

• OpenDocument vs. Microsoft Office Open XML (am I the only one annoyed by how this format is abbreviated as "Open XML"?)
• Ruby on Rails 1.0
• Firefox 1.5, including its many new features for developers. I loved the idea from Tristan Nitot that extensions are a way to keep Firefox successful. There's a lot of potential here. Anybody want to attend a tutorial on making Firefox extensions?
• W3C Rich Web Clients Activity
• XSLT 2.0 adoption and implementation--anyone but Saxon?
• The Web Desktop. I was incredibly interested in this post of Miguel de Icaza's. For a long time I've felt RDF could hold the desktop together, data-wise, but he also proposes that HTTP and web services could do a similar thing. I suspect these are two strands of development that go hand in hand.
• Design, usability and patterns for AJAX web applications.
• Open Content Alliance
• RSS and Atom: despite the release of Atom, RSS continues to grow down its own path. I reckon it's about time to sort out where each are going, and what they're best for.
• XSL-FO: I use this technology regularly for preparing PDFs with RenderX, and the specification itself is mature. It seems time to take stock of XSL-FO and where it might go in future.

Submit your proposal here: XTech 2006 Call for Participation. XTech will be held 16-19 May 2006, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Seems I despaired too soon about not being able to get good-looking fonts in Emacs. Thanks to Duncan Mak I've been able to compile and install an Emacs with anti-aliased fonts on Ubuntu. Here's the recipe:

• Get the XFT_JHD_BRANCH of CVS Emacs, see XftGnuEmacs on the Emacs wiki, and this page from Deling Ren.
• Get a further patch, from this mailing list post
• Get the emacs-snapshot-debian directory from this arch repository and use it as the debian directory inside the Emacs source tree

Then I had to edit out the build instructions for the -nox variant of Emacs, as it didn't build properly, and to be sure, added this to the Emacs-gtk confflags section of debian/rules :

  emacs_gtk_confflags += --with-xft=yes

After that, fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage -b in the source directory, and some time later, Emacs packages with anti-aliased fonts. There are some limitations: you need to set the font in your ~/.Xresources file like this:

  Emacs*font: Monospace-8

You may also want to fiddle with the Xft.dpi and Xft.hinting X properties to get the fonts to match your desktop environment. OK, so it's a bit of effort, but worth it. Hopefully this patch will mature and make its way into future Linux distributions.

Firefox extensions The release of Firefox 1.5 has awakened my interest in the browser, and a few extensions can make life easier.

View Rendered Source Chart

Really handy for a structured view of an HTML page's source. The big advantage is that is displays generated source too, perfect for figuring out AJAX applications.

Foxpose

Sheer eye candy. Thumbnail all your tabbed pages into one page.

Del.icio.us

Browser button for working with the del.icio.us bookmarks site. I've been reluctant to use remote bookmarks before, this extension might just push me over the edge. Really well thought-out integration with the browser.

Rails in Emacs Seeing as I'm not quite prepared to switch to OS X just in order to get TextMate, I figured it was time again to play with my editing environment. Pages from InVisible Blog and Scott Barron give a lot of tips as to the current state of play with Rails and Emacs. I've now got a reasonably pleasant setup, though I wasn't inclined to go the whole way to running the ECB IDE inside Emacs. On Ubuntu, the packages you are looking for are: speedbar eieio semantic ruby-elisp mmm-mode. I also found pabbrev a very handy interface for tab completion. The future for Ruby and Emacs is looking hopeful. I learned that a proper Ruby grammar for the semantic package is being worked on, which will enable class browsing and intelligent completion. I am still disappointed that there's no version of Emacs that uses Xft or Pango for anti-aliased font rendering. To get sharp fonts, I still need to use a bitmap font like misc-fixed. If I were in the business of offering bounties for open source development, dragging Emacs into the GTK2/Pango era would be the biggest one. Checking the mailing lists indicates that Pango is not suitable for Emacs, but no alternative scheme ever seems to bear fruit. Yet if Aquamacs can do it... If somebody came along with a decent TextMate-a-like for GNOME, I'd pay good money for it. I've never been really happy with an editor since Cygnus Ed. Hallski and I keep talking about this, and only just manage to resist wasting months of time on trying to write one ourselves.

Since interviewing the creator of Ruby on Rails, David Heinemeier Hansson, I've been thinking a little more about what he calls "opinionated software." That handy little phrase seems to sum up what attracts me to a lot of technology, at all levels. What I like Free software--it's not really economics that drew me to free software, but the principles and aims. When you release or use free software, you're exercising your right to free speech and adding your voice to an argument. Desktop environments--GNOME 2.0: The move from GNOME 1.0 to version 2.0 was highly opinionated (Mac users, think OS 9 to OS X). Complexity of user interface was thrown out in favour of sensible defaults. Web standards--CSS, RDF, XHTML: not only is there a right way to do things, but it turns out to be better too! I don't automatically fall in love with everything that emerges from the W3C, but some things are so obviously the right way it's impossible not to love them--warts and all. Muine music player--this player throws out the paraphernalia of iTunes clones and gets you close to the music. Queue, play. What I want to do. Epiphany web browser--a simple text bar does for bookmark lookup, search and URLs. The bookmarks work like del.icio.us tags. Despite the lure of Firefox extensions, simplicity and efficiency keeps me with Epiphany. Make friends and enemies The thing about opinions is that people are inclined to disagree with them. Opinions won't please everybody and, being opinionated, you will never carry everybody with you. But opinions give you something with which to scythe through indifference. In both my writing and software development work taking a particular stance enables me to create interest, and gives direction to my projects. I tend to get bored easily, and if I'm bored, then my readers and users will never make it. Being opinionated in software development is easier when there's a strong leader, or it's a one-person project. It's more of a dilemma if you're running a free software project with multiple contributors. Such projects need such contributions, but run a risk of losing focus and style. I think that there we need to be brave again. If being opinionated means losing potential users, it also means losing potential contributors. Opinions help in dealing with users, too. It's obvious that the mere act of listening to users isn't good enough. They often won't say what they mean, or their requests mask a deeper issue. How often have you given your boss exactly what he asked for, to find it wasn't what he wanted? A combination of reading-between-the-lines and having opinions helps cut a way through the noise of user feedback. Stirring the pot Here are a few wishes for some free software projects that I want to see succeed further, but which really need to get opinionated to be effective. These projects aren't failing, but they're not reaching the potential I know is there. Each of them are infrastructural in some way, and that's probably where the temptation to avoid being opinionated is strongest. But here's the genius: the rewards of being opinionated here are high. Ruby on Rails is the existence proof.

• Beagle, live search technology for GNOME. Needs to decide where its primary use will be, and get on and hit the 1.0 point for that use only. Choose one or two neat applications for integration, and be so utterly cool that every other app author flocks to integrate too.
• Synchronization. First MultiSync, then OpenSync, have rumbled on for ages, without ever being truly effective for any particular device. My take: choose a few "must-have" target devices--say, iPods and Nokia phones--and make them work completely. Nearly-but-not-quite pleases nobody.
• Mono. Mono's great, but where's the story? There's loads of potential in the people and the ideas behind the project, but playing catchup with Microsoft isn't very inspiring. Early projects like Muine helped Mono's cachet here, but we need more. My personal favourite option would have been a completely free alternative to ASP.NET for web applications. (I've seen a project called MonoRail, but don't know if it's the one...)

What's better? A handful of users with the "right" idea about how fundamentally important you are to everything, or loads of users who only see a portion of the capabilities of a project? Copy the experts It may seem like cheating to copy Apple's lead, but a lot of what they've done in OS X is to take a stand on what's useful and not. On many occasions this has inconvenienced people, but it's not eroded that special lure that Apple products hold. There's not harm in asking "What have Apple done?" with some of our projects. Another poster-child for being opinionated is Ubuntu Linux. Technically, it's only marginally better than other Linux distributions. Strategically, it's miles ahead. Its founder, Mark Shuttleworth, had very solid opinions about where Ubuntu should go, and pursued them. Over time, these have pervaded the product itself, but at the start it was the message and the style that made the difference. Opinions not expressed are rarely effective.

Since giving XTech 2006 the tagline "Building Web 2.0", I've received a few questions as to how wise this was. The Web 2.0 label has been accused in some quarters of being a vague, marketing-oriented, term. Perhaps an attempt to kickstart a new bubble. I was going to write further, defending my choice: that, practically speaking, Web 2.0 encapsulates a combination of technologies and practices driving the web forward. Yes, it's a label of convenience, but the implementation trends are real. The maturation of XML, a revival in browser technology, a willingness to share data openly and new web development frameworks. Just as I embarked on distilling these thoughts into a fuller form, Paul Graham published an excellent essay on Web 2.0. In it he analyses the Web 2.0 term:

Does "Web 2.0" mean anything? Till recently I thought it didn't, but the truth turns out to be more complicated. Originally, yes, it was meaningless. Now it seems to have acquired a meaning. And yet those who dislike the term are probably right, because if it means what I think it does, we don't need it.

So what's the reasoning that means we don't need the term? Graham writes: "Web 2.0 means using the web the way it's meant to be used." There's nothing fundamentally new, but there is a groundswell of understanding of what's been there all along. For me, that's a wonderful encapsulation of both current web trends and my aspirations for XTech. "Web 2.0" is a just a handy label for this. "The Web as it was meant to be used" will strike a chord with many web practitioners today--whether it's sensible use of web services with REST, improving user interaction in web design, or open semantics and data interchange. If you're involved in using the web as it's meant to be used, consider submitting an XTech proposal.

Compiled over the last few weeks, here's a random list of some subjects I'd love to see covered in XTech 2006. There's now only three weeks left of the call for participation -- so it's definitely time get that proposal in! Mail me if you have any questions.

• OpenDocument vs. Microsoft Office Open XML (am I the only one annoyed by how this format is abbreviated as "Open XML"?)
• Ruby on Rails 1.0
• Firefox 1.5, including its many new features for developers. I loved the idea from Tristan Nitot that extensions are a way to keep Firefox successful. There's a lot of potential here. Anybody want to attend a tutorial on making Firefox extensions?
• W3C Rich Web Clients Activity
• XSLT 2.0 adoption and implementation--anyone but Saxon?
• The Web Desktop. I was incredibly interested in this post of Miguel de Icaza's. For a long time I've felt RDF could hold the desktop together, data-wise, but he also proposes that HTTP and web services could do a similar thing. I suspect these are two strands of development that go hand in hand.
• Design, usability and patterns for AJAX web applications.
• Open Content Alliance
• RSS and Atom: despite the release of Atom, RSS continues to grow down its own path. I reckon it's about time to sort out where each are going, and what they're best for.
• XSL-FO: I use this technology regularly for preparing PDFs with RenderX, and the specification itself is mature. It seems time to take stock of XSL-FO and where it might go in future.

Submit your proposal here: XTech 2006 Call for Participation. XTech will be held 16-19 May 2006, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Seems I despaired too soon about not being able to get good-looking fonts in Emacs. Thanks to Duncan Mak I've been able to compile and install an Emacs with anti-aliased fonts on Ubuntu. Here's the recipe:

• Get the XFT_JHD_BRANCH of CVS Emacs, see XftGnuEmacs on the Emacs wiki, and this page from Deling Ren.
• Get a further patch, from this mailing list post
• Get the emacs-snapshot-debian directory from this arch repository and use it as the debian directory inside the Emacs source tree

Then I had to edit out the build instructions for the -nox variant of Emacs, as it didn't build properly, and to be sure, added this to the Emacs-gtk confflags section of debian/rules :

  emacs_gtk_confflags += --with-xft=yes

After that, fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage -b in the source directory, and some time later, Emacs packages with anti-aliased fonts. There are some limitations: you need to set the font in your ~/.Xresources file like this:

  Emacs*font: Monospace-8

You may also want to fiddle with the Xft.dpi and Xft.hinting X properties to get the fonts to match your desktop environment. OK, so it's a bit of effort, but worth it. Hopefully this patch will mature and make its way into future Linux distributions.

Firefox extensions The release of Firefox 1.5 has awakened my interest in the browser, and a few extensions can make life easier.

View Rendered Source Chart

Really handy for a structured view of an HTML page's source. The big advantage is that is displays generated source too, perfect for figuring out AJAX applications.

Foxpose

Sheer eye candy. Thumbnail all your tabbed pages into one page.

Del.icio.us

Browser button for working with the del.icio.us bookmarks site. I've been reluctant to use remote bookmarks before, this extension might just push me over the edge. Really well thought-out integration with the browser.

Rails in Emacs Seeing as I'm not quite prepared to switch to OS X just in order to get TextMate, I figured it was time again to play with my editing environment. Pages from InVisible Blog and Scott Barron give a lot of tips as to the current state of play with Rails and Emacs. I've now got a reasonably pleasant setup, though I wasn't inclined to go the whole way to running the ECB IDE inside Emacs. On Ubuntu, the packages you are looking for are: speedbar eieio semantic ruby-elisp mmm-mode. I also found pabbrev a very handy interface for tab completion. The future for Ruby and Emacs is looking hopeful. I learned that a proper Ruby grammar for the semantic package is being worked on, which will enable class browsing and intelligent completion. I am still disappointed that there's no version of Emacs that uses Xft or Pango for anti-aliased font rendering. To get sharp fonts, I still need to use a bitmap font like misc-fixed. If I were in the business of offering bounties for open source development, dragging Emacs into the GTK2/Pango era would be the biggest one. Checking the mailing lists indicates that Pango is not suitable for Emacs, but no alternative scheme ever seems to bear fruit. Yet if Aquamacs can do it... If somebody came along with a decent TextMate-a-like for GNOME, I'd pay good money for it. I've never been really happy with an editor since Cygnus Ed. Hallski and I keep talking about this, and only just manage to resist wasting months of time on trying to write one ourselves.

Since interviewing the creator of Ruby on Rails, David Heinemeier Hansson, I've been thinking a little more about what he calls "opinionated software." That handy little phrase seems to sum up what attracts me to a lot of technology, at all levels. What I like Free software--it's not really economics that drew me to free software, but the principles and aims. When you release or use free software, you're exercising your right to free speech and adding your voice to an argument. Desktop environments--GNOME 2.0: The move from GNOME 1.0 to version 2.0 was highly opinionated (Mac users, think OS 9 to OS X). Complexity of user interface was thrown out in favour of sensible defaults. Web standards--CSS, RDF, XHTML: not only is there a right way to do things, but it turns out to be better too! I don't automatically fall in love with everything that emerges from the W3C, but some things are so obviously the right way it's impossible not to love them--warts and all. Muine music player--this player throws out the paraphernalia of iTunes clones and gets you close to the music. Queue, play. What I want to do. Epiphany web browser--a simple text bar does for bookmark lookup, search and URLs. The bookmarks work like del.icio.us tags. Despite the lure of Firefox extensions, simplicity and efficiency keeps me with Epiphany. Make friends and enemies The thing about opinions is that people are inclined to disagree with them. Opinions won't please everybody and, being opinionated, you will never carry everybody with you. But opinions give you something with which to scythe through indifference. In both my writing and software development work taking a particular stance enables me to create interest, and gives direction to my projects. I tend to get bored easily, and if I'm bored, then my readers and users will never make it. Being opinionated in software development is easier when there's a strong leader, or it's a one-person project. It's more of a dilemma if you're running a free software project with multiple contributors. Such projects need such contributions, but run a risk of losing focus and style. I think that there we need to be brave again. If being opinionated means losing potential users, it also means losing potential contributors. Opinions help in dealing with users, too. It's obvious that the mere act of listening to users isn't good enough. They often won't say what they mean, or their requests mask a deeper issue. How often have you given your boss exactly what he asked for, to find it wasn't what he wanted? A combination of reading-between-the-lines and having opinions helps cut a way through the noise of user feedback. Stirring the pot Here are a few wishes for some free software projects that I want to see succeed further, but which really need to get opinionated to be effective. These projects aren't failing, but they're not reaching the potential I know is there. Each of them are infrastructural in some way, and that's probably where the temptation to avoid being opinionated is strongest. But here's the genius: the rewards of being opinionated here are high. Ruby on Rails is the existence proof.

• Beagle, live search technology for GNOME. Needs to decide where its primary use will be, and get on and hit the 1.0 point for that use only. Choose one or two neat applications for integration, and be so utterly cool that every other app author flocks to integrate too.
• Synchronization. First MultiSync, then OpenSync, have rumbled on for ages, without ever being truly effective for any particular device. My take: choose a few "must-have" target devices--say, iPods and Nokia phones--and make them work completely. Nearly-but-not-quite pleases nobody.
• Mono. Mono's great, but where's the story? There's loads of potential in the people and the ideas behind the project, but playing catchup with Microsoft isn't very inspiring. Early projects like Muine helped Mono's cachet here, but we need more. My personal favourite option would have been a completely free alternative to ASP.NET for web applications. (I've seen a project called MonoRail, but don't know if it's the one...)

What's better? A handful of users with the "right" idea about how fundamentally important you are to everything, or loads of users who only see a portion of the capabilities of a project? Copy the experts It may seem like cheating to copy Apple's lead, but a lot of what they've done in OS X is to take a stand on what's useful and not. On many occasions this has inconvenienced people, but it's not eroded that special lure that Apple products hold. There's not harm in asking "What have Apple done?" with some of our projects. Another poster-child for being opinionated is Ubuntu Linux. Technically, it's only marginally better than other Linux distributions. Strategically, it's miles ahead. Its founder, Mark Shuttleworth, had very solid opinions about where Ubuntu should go, and pursued them. Over time, these have pervaded the product itself, but at the start it was the message and the style that made the difference. Opinions not expressed are rarely effective.

Since giving XTech 2006 the tagline "Building Web 2.0", I've received a few questions as to how wise this was. The Web 2.0 label has been accused in some quarters of being a vague, marketing-oriented, term. Perhaps an attempt to kickstart a new bubble. I was going to write further, defending my choice: that, practically speaking, Web 2.0 encapsulates a combination of technologies and practices driving the web forward. Yes, it's a label of convenience, but the implementation trends are real. The maturation of XML, a revival in browser technology, a willingness to share data openly and new web development frameworks. Just as I embarked on distilling these thoughts into a fuller form, Paul Graham published an excellent essay on Web 2.0. In it he analyses the Web 2.0 term:

Does "Web 2.0" mean anything? Till recently I thought it didn't, but the truth turns out to be more complicated. Originally, yes, it was meaningless. Now it seems to have acquired a meaning. And yet those who dislike the term are probably right, because if it means what I think it does, we don't need it.

So what's the reasoning that means we don't need the term? Graham writes: "Web 2.0 means using the web the way it's meant to be used." There's nothing fundamentally new, but there is a groundswell of understanding of what's been there all along. For me, that's a wonderful encapsulation of both current web trends and my aspirations for XTech. "Web 2.0" is a just a handy label for this. "The Web as it was meant to be used" will strike a chord with many web practitioners today--whether it's sensible use of web services with REST, improving user interaction in web design, or open semantics and data interchange. If you're involved in using the web as it's meant to be used, consider submitting an XTech proposal.

I'm very excited to announce the Call for Participation for XTech 2006. Submissions are due by 9th January. The conference itself is 16th-19th May 2006, in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The theme this year is "Building Web 2.0", focusing on the technologies and issues involved in building the next generation of web applications and services. There are four tracks --

• Applications -- "mashups", frameworks, publishing, open source solutions, aggregation
• Browser Technology -- browsers, AJAX, design and interaction for Web 2.0
• Core Technologies -- the XML and RDF family, RSS/Atom, databases, nuts-and-bolts tech
• Open Data -- information design, identity, tagging, privacy, trust, Creative Commons, DRM, government

I'll write a bit more about each track in the coming weeks, but if any of this turns you on, head over to the full call and submit your abstract. Also, do read the full track descriptions -- they go into more detail than I can here. Tutorials will be held on the 16th, and the presentation tracks from 17th-19th. In 2006 I want to build on the success of last year and broaden XTech's reach into web technologies. On the technology side, I'm particularly interested in getting more in about databases, frameworks like Ruby on Rails, tagging and search. In addition to technology, I'm interested in opening up dialogue between developers, designers and information architects about the kinds of applications being built on the web now, and the issues of their design, organization and implementation. Partly to encourage this, 2006's conference will have more room for panel discussion sessions. Feel free to drop me a note with any questions or suggestions about XTech 2006. (If you want to propose a session, please use the online submission form rather than sending email.)