Is this the right room for an argument?

My favorite 30 seconds of Monty Python's Flying Circus occurs in The Argument Sketch:

M: Ah, Is this the right room for an argument?
A: I told you once.
M: No you haven't.
A: Yes I have.
M: When?
A: Just now.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: You didn't
A: I did!
M: You didn't!
[etc...]

Now I'm not predicting an argument but I am predicting some lively debate at The Mashup, Microformats and Mobile Web Panel.
Topics for discussion include:

• Is the phrase "reliable mashup application" an oxymoron?
  
• Will we ever see one syndication format emerge to dominate or is babelisation inevitable? Desirable?
  
• Do microformats need governance in order to work?
  
• Is the mobile web a technological superset subset or mutation of the "original" web?
  
• Can MMS be equated with WAP. Would that be a category error?
  
• Has blogging run its course as a phenomenon?
  
• Are microformats running out of steam or gathering steam?
  
• How many forms of digital identity will I need to use the Web in 2010?
  

Arc pulls no punches

"Arc embodies just about every form of political incorrectness possible in a programming language. It doesn't have strong typing, or even type declarations; it uses overlays on hash tables instead of conventional objects; its macros are unhygienic; it doesn't distinguish between falsity and the empty list, or between form and content in web pages; it doesn't have modules or any predefined form of encapsulation except closures; it doesn't support any character sets except ascii. Such things may have their uses, but there's also a place for a language that skips them." -- arclanguage.org

At first blush, one might dismiss such a programming language. Some people might be so inclined on all of the grounds mentioned above. Some (like me) on a subset of them.

However, when you see this tacked on to the end...

Paul Graham
Robert Morris

You know you need to keep an eye on it.

How to learn to love simple electronic filing systems

On some surprisingly effective information management techniques for office-centric data; and on the concomitant appropriation of the term "management" by the relational database industry; and sundry matters vaguely associated thereto. Be it exposited as follows:
How to learn to love simple electronic filing systems

XTech 2008

I will have the honor later this year of doing one of those keynote things at XTech 2008. I'm noodling what approach to take and have not discussed it with the organizers yet....But I intend talking about XML, REST, Mobility, Identity, Digital Rights and other such things, probably via some scenic Celtic routes. Partaking of commodius vici of recirculation, irregular and troublesome verbs, bloody battles, some extremely interesting old books and the odd tincture of IT related Philosophical Investigations.

Six things online savvy kids know that many businesses don't

On the ability of internet savvy kids to do complex things in clever, cheap ways because nobody told them that "grown ups" think this stuff is hard: Six things online savvy kids know that many businesses don't

In Document/Web land everything is "call by value"

Ian Bicking noodles the fundamental issue of the relationship between Documents and Objects (as those terms are used in the programming patois of English).

He hits on a useful distinction that resonates with me : in Document-style everything is call-by-value.

Very useful.

The Balisage Markup conference

Markup conferences are a fundamentally useful thing in the universe. Herewith some information about a new one, Montréal, August, what's not to like?

Balisage is a peer reviewed conference designed to meet the needs of markup theoreticians and practitioners who are pushing the boundaries of the field. It's all about the markup: how to create it; what it means; hierarchies and overlap; modeling; taxonomies; transformation; query, searching, and retrieval; presentation and accessibility; making systems that make markup dance (or dance faster to a different tune in a smaller space) - in short, changing the world and the web through the power of marked-up information.

It's an XML Conference. It's an XSL Conference. It's a conference about SGML, LMNL, XSL-FO, XTM, RDF, XQuery, SVG, MathML, OWL, UBL, XSD, TexMECS, RNG, and a lot more. We welcome papers about topic maps, document modeling, markup of overlapping structures, ontologies, metadata, content management, and other markup-related topics at Balisage.

We welcome papers about topic maps, document modeling, markup of overlapping structures, ontologies, metadata, content management, and other markup-related topics at Balisage. If you want to talk, in detail, about XML, XSL, SGML, LMNL, XSL-FO, XTM, RDF, XQuery, SVG, MathML, OWL, UBL, XSD, TexMECS, RNG, or any other markup-related topic, we urge you to participate in Balisage.

How:

Submit full papers in XML to info@balisage.net
Guidelines, details, and schemas at http://www.balisage.net/submissions.html
Schedule:

15 March 2008 - Peer Review Applications Due
18 April 2008 - Paper Submissions Due
20 May 2008 - Speakers Notified
18 July 2008 - Revised Papers Due
11 August 2008 - Versioning Symposium
12-15 August 2008 - Balisage: The Markup Conference


If you have any questions about Balisage send email to info@balisage.net