From espians

Here is, I guess, somewhat of a personal shaila.

• 2007-06-21 - Plexnet or Espra, which comes first? (IRC). By Salvage and Tav mainly, with some stuff from Jeffarch and Evangineer.
  • <tav> whilst i totally see your point, this is exactly what we did back in 1999-2001: espra (music/video.espra); starIM (chat.espra); osian (code.espra); blazingfast (host.espra); lastcontinuum (metaverse.espra); advue (ads.espra); waveband (wifi.espra); xnet (groupware.espra); plexnews (news.espra); and so on" #
  • <tav> so, ehm, can we put the plexnet before/after espra discussion to rest now pls? i'm not changing my mind on it... i'll reconsider if the plexnet doesn't materialise for WTF 7.1 #
  • <salvage> if i write 1000+ coders... and introduce them to video.espra etc... do i have a better chance of salvaging 10 coders... then i would if i ovrwlmed them with a techspec or undrwlmed them with a tarball? | <tav> the plexnet is not for plexnet's sake. no point @ WTF 7.1 in showing people a bunch of code #
  • <jeffarch> tell Bill Gates that he should have started writing word processors rather than OSs #
  • The Espra alpha 1 todo came out of this discussion. Tav said he'll clean it up for Monday (25 June 2007)
  • <tav> this is about creating a platform *AND* rich, powerful applications #
  • <tav> right now, there are 2 focuses in my life: WTF 7.1 and Espra Alpha 1 | <tav> [...] once espra is there, even as an alpha, i think people will be able to stop talking about the damned thing and just start making it happen #
  • Summary Salvage and Tav still seem to disagree as to whether we should work on applications (espra) first or a framework to enable the applications (plexnet). It's funny, though, that Tav is calling the Plexnet release Espra Alpha 1 rather than Plexnet Alpha 1. It seems to show that he is concentrating on the results of the Plexnet.
  • 2007-06-22 Further discussion on this subject.

• 2007-06-21 Shailas, layering, and design patterns (IRC/Wiki). With Jeffarch and Sbp. The ideas are amply explained on Talk:Shaila.
  • "As long as you start with something useful (a brief summary) and then add layers of usefulness (a few quotes, a longer summary, a considered response, etc.), you can stop at any time and you still have a useful, finished product. This means that, unlike the organise and augment process where if you stop half way through you end up with a half finished product, you're kinda incrementally saving and you can step out at any time. Stratigraphical Shailaing!" - Sbp

• 2007-06-21 The Three Technologies (IRC). With Tav and Sbp. The Plexnet may be implemented roughly using the 6 proprietary technologies. Conceptual browsing, unimessaging, and tomanr are three things that the Plexnet will enable. Therefore, how could one implement those three things using the 6 proprietary technologies, and what abstractions would one make in the process? #
  • <sbp> tav: what kind of thing could one do by combining openid + Google base + pipes + etc.? | <tav> sbp: contextual browsing; unimessaging; tomanr #
  • <sbp> perhaps the CB paradigm is a kind of accessor to TR and UM in that you might come across someone's review, non-anonymous, and want to message them about it | <sbp> that's the kind of thing that's a shit to do on the web at the moment | <sbp> look up the username, see if they have an email address, if not, google for the username, see if it's used somewhere else, oh it was used with a name, google the name, find a homepage, email address hidden in an image to prevent spammers... #
  • <sbp> the Three Things Question is at least a way of understanding what the Plexnet is by independent invention; it's like reverse engineering by independent invention! "Tav just made a GOOJUDGE that does things X, Y, and Z. What features does the GOOJUDGE need to do X, Y, and Z, and what will that knowledge tell me about the GOOJUDGE?" | <sbp> only it's even better--we're reverse engineering something that *doesn't even exist*; outside of The Mind of Tav, where we don't have much access to it... so in a sense this is just a documentation strategy. but it's a bloody interesting one #

• 2007-06-20 What's the best social process to go forward with? (IRC). By David Pinto and Sbp. Probably best to look at the quotes to tell what this was all about.
  • <sbp> I think the best course might be if we were to become a more overt thinktank | <happyseaurchin> dang... we need more than thoughts.... we need skills! #
  • <sbp> you're quite a cloud-thinker, it seems. so I store your ideas in a slush bucket #
  • <sbp> but historically speaking this is one of the most disasterous projects ever: Xanadu levels of disasterous. which is kinda the point... Xanadu is *awesome* #
  • <sbp> conditions that functional open source projects tend to have: 1) programmers! 2) an interested user base 3) a clear idea on what to work on #
  • <sbp> to make something amazing you have to start on it somewhere. Tomanr isn't amazing, but it could be a component of a larger amazing thing #
  • <sbp> the first is tav's: we work on The Plexnet via his method; we all agree that The Plexnet is to be built on, so no seeking the agreement there. but are we working on it? no | <sbp> the second was the idea we came up with on consensus when tav was on holiday: we propose projects to work on, we vote for one, and we work on it | <sbp> when tav came back from holiday, we reverted to the first | <sbp> what I'm saying that if the first is the one to work on, who's working on it? | <sbp> how do they work on it? | <sbp> who's making the plexnet? how are they making the plexnet? how should I get involved? #
  • Summary This was basically an explanation of what's going at the moment, in the cycle of The Chaos, That Friday, and now the Period of Placidity. Basically we've reverted to Plan A in the old TAD/PPP parlace. There you go. Only one difference so far seems to be that Tav's documenting the process a little more than usual, which is good.
  • Later on, as if to colophon it: <tav> it makes more sense i think to just listen to people until week 8, and get them to tell us what they wanna see | <sbp> okay. so CommEngNG counts as a thing that you'd listen to? | <tav> sbp: right #