Author Archives: David Megginson

Life without cookies (or URL rewriting)

Posted on October 13, 2005 by David Megginson

Is it possible (for webapps, that is)? Is it desirable? Current practice is to set up a session on the server side, then use the cookie (or a GET parameter or URL substring) as a key to associate individual HTTP … Continue reading →

Tagged , | 11 Comments

Oracle vs MySQL AB

Posted on October 11, 2005 by David Megginson

Tim O’Reilly reprinted a note from Andy Oram about Oracle’s recent purchase of InnoDB, the company that produces the best of the MySQL backends. Assuming that Oracle knows what they’re doing (generally a safe assumption), the purchase is not an … Continue reading →

Posted in General | 5 Comments

A good Zachman question

Posted on September 13, 2005 by David Megginson

The Zachman Framework (link to a full Wikipedia article) has been around for almost two decades now. It is an approach to enterprise system architecture that involves asking a series of questions (who, what, when, where, why, and how) for … Continue reading →

Tagged | 3 Comments

Six Degrees of Wikipedia

Posted on September 11, 2005 by David Megginson

[Update: automated search: see below] My kids have independently come up with something very similar to the old Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game — they choose two arbitrary Wikipedia topics (say, feces and Paris Hilton) and then figure out … Continue reading →

Tagged | 3 Comments

How SSL/TLS is broken, socially

Posted on August 20, 2005 by David Megginson

SSL/TLS works pretty well on the technical side, but on the social side, it’s broken, because so many sites (especially small ones) don’t use it, requiring users to send passwords and other private information in the clear. The problem is … Continue reading →

Tagged | 6 Comments

SSL/TLS RSS Challenge

Posted on August 20, 2005 by David Megginson

[Update: more results] [Update: some results left as comments; and more.] Thanks to everyone who posted comments on my Password-Protected RSS challenge three weeks ago. It turned out that the vast majority of feed readers can handle HTTP basic authentication … Continue reading →

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Patents and screwdrivers

Posted on August 8, 2005 by David Megginson

The Wikipedia article on the Robertson screwdriver gives an excellent example of how clumsy use of a patent hurts innovation. The Robertson screw (square hole, slightly tapered) is the best general-purpose screw drive ever designed, and accounts for about 85% … Continue reading →

Posted in General | 10 Comments

Something for nothing

Posted on July 31, 2005 by David Megginson

I’ve noticed that Slashdot has started to include text ads in their RSS feed much more frequently, and I’m considering unsubscribing. I have no moral or ethical objection to text ads in RSS feeds, but this is the first time … Continue reading →

Tagged | 2 Comments

Password-Protected RSS Challenge

Posted on July 29, 2005 by David Megginson

[More updates from comments.] [Update: many more results, collected from comments. It looks like nearly every feed reader can handle at least HTTP basic authentication, which is good news for people planning to use RSS and Atom in government or … Continue reading →

Tagged , | 27 Comments

Aspects

Posted on July 29, 2005 by David Megginson

I’ve decided it’s time to figure out if aspect-oriented programming is worth, well, figuring out. So far, nearly everything Google can find for me about AOP is positive — glowing, even — and that makes me nervous. Real change is … Continue reading →

Tagged | 7 Comments