Author Archives: David Megginson

Of Dilbert and Torture

Posted on December 23, 2005 by David Megginson

[I normally stick to technical issues on this weblog. This posting is about logic, which is sort-of related to tech; apologies in advance to anyone who came here hoping for a short break from personal pontification about current events.] Over … Continue reading →

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Mind your colons …

Posted on December 23, 2005 by David Megginson

… and make friends with a technical writer. Prescriptive grammarians — the ones who argue that the English language should follow a single standard that is both correct and eternal (at least since Fowler) and attempt to impose that standard … Continue reading →

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Bob DuCharme

Posted on December 5, 2005 by David Megginson

Bob DuCharme, who is well known in the XML community, now has a weblog. Welcome.

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Can SOAP hide XML?

Posted on December 4, 2005 by David Megginson

[update: fix affiliations] I just stumbled on an interesting paper from the IEEE Web Services conference last July, Rethinking the Java SOAP Stack (PDF), written by Steve Loughran at HP Laboratories Bristol and Edmund Smith at the University of Edinburgh. … Continue reading →

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White-texting Google

Posted on November 24, 2005 by David Megginson

[Update: the white text no longer helps Oxcyon — they’re not even the top hit for their own company name any more.] I’ve just stumbled across the most extreme white-text example I’ve ever seen, and it belongs not to a … Continue reading →

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Thanks, Lauren

Posted on November 19, 2005 by David Megginson

[Update: Lauren has posted her farewell message.] On Thursday night in front a packed banquet hall in Atlanta, Lauren Wood announced her retirement as chair of the annual fall XML conference, the world’s largest XML event. Lauren has done an … Continue reading →

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Must-Ignore and Must-Understand

Posted on November 16, 2005 by David Megginson

I was listening to Tim Bray‘s excellent talk On Language Creation today at the XML 2005 conference in Atlanta. Tim was talking about creating new XML-based markup languages (summary: “please don’t”), and in passing he mentioned the must-ignore/must-understand design pattern. … Continue reading →

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First mover (dis)advantage

Posted on October 25, 2005 by David Megginson

I recently heard from an older computer user who was delighted that his hotel’s free WiFi simply worked with his notebook computer. Internet access on the road didn’t use to be so easy, either for hotels or their guests. Consider … Continue reading →

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GET requests and "wings fall off" buttons

Posted on October 24, 2005 by David Megginson

Bill de hÓra is outraged that people are blaming Google Web Accelerator (GWA) for following HTTP GET links, rather than blaming the morons^H^H^H^H^H^Hweb developers who built web sites that use innocent-looking GET requests for actions with side effects, like (say) … Continue reading →

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Sputtering down to XML 2005

Posted on October 13, 2005 by David Megginson

My creaky little Piper Warrior has been grounded since a lighting strike (while tied-down on the apron) back in July, but the engine’s finally back from overhaul, and I plan to be in the air soon — just in time, … Continue reading →

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