Edd Dumbill's Weblog: 'xtech' articles Articles tagged as 'xtech' from Edd Dumbill, technology writer and free software hacker. http://times.usefulinc.com/tagxtech 2008-05-23T14:32:11Z Badges, blogging and bragging http://times.usefulinc.com/2008/05/23-updates Back from my travels, it's time for a few updates. I've mostly blogged about these elsewhere, so I'll just give some pointers here. xtech linux xml web expectnation Edd Dumbill 2008-05-23T14:11:10Z <p>Back from my travels, it's time for a few updates. I've mostly blogged about these elsewhere, so I'll just give some pointers here.</p> <p>The <a href="http://www.expectnation.com/public/content/2008/05/22-reg-and-lead-retrieval">launch of magnetic-stripe cards</a> at Where 2.0 went well.</p> <p>We had some initial teething issues with Linux talking to the card printers, which was resolved by backing down to Linux kernel 2.6.22 from 2.6.24. I'm not entirely sure what's up with 2.6.24, but it exhibited strange behavior talking to the card printers over ethernet &mdash; as if there were MTU misconfigurations. It's a big nuisance, as 2.6.24 is the default kernel shipped with Ubuntu Hardy, an otherwise excellent release.</p> <p>I've been paying some attention to OpenID 2.0 recently, as it's time for me to upgrade my OpenID accepting websites to use the new release of the specification &mdash; if for no other reason than Yahoo! OpenIDs are 2.0-only.</p> <p>This investigation led me to notice XRIs again, which are the confusing underbelly of the OpenID specs. The W3C Technical Architecture Group recently advised against using XRIs. I <a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2008/05/xris_bad_uris_good.html">wrote about this</a>&nbsp;over on my XML.com blog.</p> <p>I've not used for that blog for a long time, but will try to do so more. I've realized that I've still got a lot to say about the web, XML and open standards, and the XML.com blog seems like a good place to say it.</p> <p>Finally, to brag for a short moment. Another <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/">XTech</a>&nbsp;has been and gone, and this year's was a great experience for everybody involved. This quote <a href="http://paulsmith.blogs.ilrt.org/2008/05/19/xtech-2008-day-3/">from attendee Paul Smith</a> summed things up nicely, as it tells me I succeeded in my main goal for the conference:</p> <blockquote>What I really liked about this conference was the mix of attendees and presenters, both from academia, and the commercial world both and small. It made it feel much more valid, and it really felt like everyone was there for the right reasons - not trying to sell anything, but out of a genuinely altruistic wish to make the web better.</blockquote> <p>My sincere thanks to everybody involved in XTech this year.</p><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2008/05/23-updates#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Dublin and San Francisco http://times.usefulinc.com/2008/05/02-travel My next two jaunts; Dublin for XTech and San Francisco for Where 2.0 xtech expectnation conferences Edd Dumbill 2008-05-02T17:14:04Z <p>About to go off travelling again.</p> <p>Next week is of course <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/">XTech 2008</a>, so I'll be in Dublin with some of the smartest people working in web technology today. The <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/schedule/full">schedule</a> looks fantastic, and we've still got proposals coming in for the <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/schedule/detail/654">Lightning Talks</a>, which promise to be highly entertaining and informative.</p> <p>If you didn't yet book, don't worry that you missed the online registration deadline, you can still register on-site.</p> <h3>Where 2.0</h3> <p>After XTech, it's straight to San Francisco (well, Burlingame) for the O'Reilly <a href="http://en.oreilly.com/where2008">Where 2.0</a> conference. Although I'm interested in the conference, my main reason for going is that <a href="http://www.expectnation.com/">we're</a> launching a new addition to our onsite check-in system: magnetic stripe conference badges.</p> <p>Here's a <a href="http://assets.expectnation.com/1/eventprovider/1/where_badge.png">proof image of my badge</a>.</p> <p><img src="http://assets.expectnation.com/1/eventprovider/1/where_badge.png" alt="Badge proof for Where 2.0" width="499" height="160" /></p> <p>I've really enjoyed working with making badges: every so often as a software person, you get to write something that creates a physical artefact. I guess this is one reason <a href="http://www.arduino.cc/">Arduino</a> is so popular.</p> <p>It's also been interesting as we're working entirely within Linux. Specialized hardware like badge printers tends to be primarily aimed at Windows machines. Happily, the <a href="http://www.evolis.com/">Evolis</a> range of printers has CUPS drivers too.</p><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2008/05/02-travel#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> XTech registration open, schedule published http://times.usefulinc.com/2008/03/20-xtech-open The full schedule is now available for XTech 2008, and registration has opened xtech conferences Edd Dumbill 2008-03-20T13:28:24Z <p>Registration is now open for <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/">XTech 2008</a>. We're in Dublin, Ireland, from May 6-9.</p> <p>We've also now published the <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/schedule/full">full schedule</a>. You can use the clickable stars by each session to put together your own personal schedule for the conference.</p> <p>If you're new to XTech, here's what to expect: a thought-provoking, well-informed and friendly conference covering the latest in Web and open standards technology.</p> <p>If you've been to XTech before, you should expect more of the same, with the usual inclusion of new directions and controversy.</p> <h3>Keynotes</h3> <p>Our keynotes this year are all people with whom one could never get enough time: Simon Wardley, who has great insight on the dynamics of open standards and open source, and presents them in a very engaging and entertaining way; Sean McGrath, whom to call a Python, XML and mobile expert would be to ignore 99.5% of his talent; and David Recordon of SixApart, one of the chief brains behind OpenID and a very nice man indeed.</p> <h3>Tutorials</h3> <p>As usual, XTech kicks off with a <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/schedule/topic/28">day of tutorials</a>. I'm absurdly proud of the faculty we have together: hear about jQuery from Simon Willison, XSLT from Tony Graham and Doug Tidwell, XForms from Steven Pemberton and Web 2.0 from Eric van der Vlist.</p> <p>And that's just to start. This year we've two tutorials that have the potential to change the way you develop systems and services.</p> <p><a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/schedule/detail/639"><span style="font-weight: bold;">A practical introduction to hardware hacking with Arduino</span></a></p> <p>If you've not heard of <a href="http://www.arduino.cc/">Arduino</a> before, it's an open source electronics prototyping platform that's very easy to build with.</p> <p>Why is a web conference is featuring hardware? Think about our theme "the web on the move." The next step for the web is out of our computers in into our gadgets and lives, we already saw a start to that in our conference last year with presentations on mobile devices and physical hyperlinks.</p> <p>Arduino removes the barrier to entry for those who think of themselves as "software people", and is a fantastic way to start bringing your web applications into physical environments. I highly recommend the tutorial as way of expanding the horizons of your web development. (A similar tutorial at O'Reilly's ETech conference sold out within days!)</p> <p><a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/schedule/detail/487"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Building CouchDB Applications</span></a></p> <p>All of a sudden the web application database choice stopped being the traditional one of MySQL, Oracle or PostgreSQL. A new breed of databases has emerged, speaking the language of the modern web: REST, JSON and JavaScript.</p> <p>The open source <a href="http://couchdb.org/">CouchDB</a>, backed by IBM, is the frontrunner among this new breed of databases. It's a document oriented, non-relational database management system. And here's the key thing: it's distributed by default. Check out the CouchDB <a href="http://www.couchdbwiki.com/index.php?title=CouchDb_Quick_Overview">Quick Overview</a> for more details.</p> <p>CouchDB expert Jan Lehnardt will be teaching a half day tutorial.</p> <h3>BOFs, Lightning Talks</h3> <p>As usual we'll be running Birds-of-a-Feather sessions and Lightning Talks, both of which will be open to public participation. Look out for calls for involvement in both those soon.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2008/03/20-xtech-open#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> XTech deadline extended until Monday http://times.usefulinc.com/2008/01/27-xtech-ext The XTech deadline has been extended until the end of Monday, January 28. xtech Edd Dumbill 2008-01-27T21:55:54Z <p>If you missed last Friday's deadline for <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/content/2007/12/05-cfp">XTech 2008 proposals</a>, don't worry, there's a second chance.</p><p>I've extended the deadline until the end of this Monday (January 28).</p><p>There's still time to <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/content/2007/12/05-cfp">get your proposal in</a>! <br /></p><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2008/01/27-xtech-ext#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Last few days for XTech CFP http://times.usefulinc.com/2008/01/22-data You've only got until the end of this week to submit your proposal for XTech 2008. xtech conferences Edd Dumbill 2008-01-22T11:38:24Z <p>There are only a few days now to <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/content/2007/12/05-cfp">submit your proposal</a> for <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/">XTech 2008</a> (May 6-9, Dublin, Ireland.)</p><p>We're looking for <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/cfp/10">tutorial</a> and <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/cfp/9">presentation</a> proposals. All speakers get free conference registration, and further assistance is available to tutorial presenters.</p><p>Our theme this year, &quot;<a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/content/about">the web on the move</a>&quot;, couldn't be more timely, whether you're thinking about <a href="http://dataportability.org/">data portability</a>, <a href="http://developers.facebook.com/">web</a> <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/">based</a> <a href="http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/">platforms</a> or <a href="http://www.apple.com/iphone/">mobile</a> <a href="http://maemo.org/">devices</a>. This theme will work its way through our usual coverage of open technologies, browsers, open data and web development.</p><p>Your audience will be people just like you: responsible for innovating and leading technology choices in their organizations or open source. Check out last year's <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/public/schedule/speakers">speaker list</a> and <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/public/schedule/presentations">proceedings</a> to get a feel for the conference.</p><p>This year's keynote speakers will be <a href="http://seanmcgrath.blogspot.com/">Sean McGrath</a>, <a href="http://blog.gardeviance.org/">Simon Wardley</a> and <a href="http://daveman692.livejournal.com/">David Recordon</a>. <br /></p><p>There's only until the end of this week left, so <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/content/2007/12/05-cfp">submit your proposal now</a>! I look forward to seeing you in <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/content/venue">Dublin</a>.</p><p>See also: <br /></p><ul><li><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/12/05-xtech08">XTech 2008 call for participation is open </a><br /></li></ul><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2008/01/22-data#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> XTech 2008 call for participation is open http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/12/05-xtech08 This year, XTech's all about the web on the move. Submit your proposals now! xtech conferences Edd Dumbill 2007-12-05T15:04:11Z <p>I'm pleased to announce the <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/content/2007/12/05-cfp">Call for Participation</a> for <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/">XTech 2008</a>. We'll be in Dublin, Ireland from May 6-9th.</p><p>Our theme for this year is &quot;The Web on the Move&quot;. I'm not just talking about your shiny new iPhone, but about the emerging portability of data, applications and identity on the internet. XTech 2008 will explore the benefits, issues, practicalities and fun of a web built on open standards, open source and commodity technology.</p><p>The confluence of virtualization, open APIs and open data standards has really made me think. Today, you probably trust somebody else to store your email. Tomorrow, they'll be running your applications, providing you your computing power and exchanging your data with other providers.</p><p>XTech 2008 will cover portability in all its senses, including shared identity, data, mobile client devices, machine virtualization and more, in addition to our usual run of technical web development topics including Ajax, markup, programming and operations.<br /></p><p>Just as importantly as the content, XTech is the place to meet others who are shaping the web as we know it. Take a look at last year's <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/public/schedule/speakers">speaker list</a> and <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/public/schedule/presentations">presentations</a>. If these are the people and organizations you want to argue with, be inspired by and challenge, I'd love you to be part of this year's speaker list.<br /></p><p>Head on over to the <a href="http://2008.xtech.org/public/content/2007/12/05-cfp">Call for Participation</a>, and be sure to get your proposals in by January 25th!&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/12/05-xtech08#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Prince: from HTML and CSS to PDF http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/10/10-prince The Prince processor shows that CSS is good enough for print formatting as well as the web. xtech typography xml Edd Dumbill 2007-10-10T11:30:33Z <p>Thanks to H&aring;kon Wium Lie, we were able to convert all of the XHTML proceedings from <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/">XTech 2007</a> into professional quality PDFs, using only CSS for styling. The PDFs are available from the <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/public/schedule/presentations">proceedings</a> page.</p><p>H&aring;kon used the <a href="http://www.princexml.com/">Prince processor</a> to do this (he's director of the company that makes it), and there's a <a href="http://www.princexml.com/samples/">small note on the Prince web site</a> about how it was done. Having used XSL-FO to produce a sizeable number of large documents before, I'm very attracted by being able to use regular HTML plus CSS to format PDF versions of documents. Check out H&aring;kon's XTech presentation, <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/public/schedule/detail/166">Printing the Web</a>, for details of some of the technical issues involved.<br /></p><p>Prince is commercial software, of course, like practically all high quality typesettings systems.</p><ul><li>I hope shortly to share news of XTech 2008. Watch this blog or sign up to the <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/public/content/newsletter">mailing list</a> in order to keep up to date.&nbsp;</li></ul><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/10/10-prince#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> XTech heatmaps http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/05/16-xtech-heatmaps Simple visualisation to help conference organizers. xtech expectnation visualization Edd Dumbill 2007-05-16T15:16:57Z <p>One of the fun and useful things we've been able to do in <a href="http://www.expectnation.com/">Expectnation</a> with the <a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/05/11-xtech">personal scheduler</a> is to use the data to help us as organizers.</p> <p>We recently added in dynamic overlays to the organizer's view of the schedule, enabling us to create heatmaps of the most popular talks.</p> <p style="text-align: center"><img width="184" height="424" alt="Heatmap" src="http://times.usefulinc.com/asset/name/35/heatmap.png" title="Heatmap" /><br />Screenshot of personal scheduler popularity overlaid on event timetable</p> <p>As well as satisfying natural curiosity, the heatmaps let us identify issues such as possible room overcrowding in advance.</p> <p>We're able also to record actual attendance figures as the conference goes on, and I will try and make an analysis of how attendees' intentions stack up against their actions.&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/05/16-xtech-heatmaps#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Up close and personal at XTech http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/05/11-xtech News of the XTech browser summit and personal scheduler. xtech web expectnation Edd Dumbill 2007-05-11T16:53:19Z <p>It's been a long time since I last wrote, mostly because we've been pulling out all the stops for <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/">XTech</a>.</p> <p>Next week is set to be stimulating and challenging. I'm amazed at the collection of thinkers and innovators we've drawn together, and am looking forward to getting a boost of energy and inspiration from the conference.<br /> </p> <h3>Browser summit</h3> <p>On Tuesday next week, <a href="http://molly.com/">Molly Holzschlag</a> and I are sponsoring a <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/public/content/2007/05/10-browser-summit">Web Browser, Standards and Interop Summit</a>. This is an opportunity for browser vendors, standards advocates, W3C and related standards supporters to talk in a vendor (and standards-body) neutral atmosphere about tackling the problem of browser interoperability.</p> <p>As the <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/public/content/2007/05/10-browser-summit">full announcement</a> mentions, we're also throwing open the doors to interested bloggers and journalists to get involved in and cover the discussion.</p> <p>The summit came about after Molly and I got talking about our desire to provide a forum for effective exchange between the people shaping the future of HTML. This is something that spawned the vision of the Browser Track and XTech in the first place three years ago.</p> <p>I don't know how much we'll solve at the first summit, but it puts down a marker and a challenge for participation. I am not the only one concerned at the increasing fragmentation of the HTML landscape, the breakdown in communication, and the ultimate ill-effects for web developers and users.</p> <h3>Personal scheduler and evaluations</h3> <p>As my conference software <a href="http://www.expectnation.com/">Expectnation</a> nears its public launch, we'll be using some of its fun features at XTech. Normally, the bulk of the work is done behind the scenes, so it's nice to have a feature to show off to attendees and the wider public.</p> <p><img width="195" hspace="8" height="163" align="right" src="http://times.usefulinc.com/asset/name/34/psched.png" alt="Personal scheduler" title="Personal scheduler" /></p> <p>The personal scheduling feature lets you compose your own timetable for the conference, just by clicking on the stars throughout the schedule. As a bonus, you can subscribe to your personal schedule as iCal, allowing you to take it with you on your phone or PDA.</p> <p>In addition, we'll be allowing attendees to submit evaluations of sessions online. If you're using the personal scheduler, it gets even neater as you can quickly find links to submit your evaluations, and review ones you've already submitted.</p> <p>Behind the scenes, I can see which sessions are the most popular and get advance warning if we're likely to need to move rooms to avoid overcrowding.</p> <p>I'm pretty excited about this. Features like this aren't exactly new, but now we've made them a standard feature for every conference. We're looking forward to adding more social software facilities to enhance the conference experience.</p><p><img width="444" height="246" title="Submitting session evaluations" alt="Submitting session evaluations" src="http://times.usefulinc.com/asset/name/33/eval.png" />&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/05/11-xtech#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Using sparklines to aid conference proposal selection http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/03/06-sparklines A brief survey of XTech voting patterns as illustrated by sparklines. xtech expectnation visualization Edd Dumbill 2007-03-06T15:34:10Z <p>In a <a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/02/23-xtech">recent article</a> I explained some of the mechanics behind putting together the schedule for <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/">XTech 2007</a>. We've just added new visualization features to <a href="http://www.expectnation.com/">Expectnation</a> that make proposal choice easier, and I thought I'd show some examples from the XTech 2007 review voting.</p> <p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkline">Sparklines</a>, devised by Edward Tufte, are thumbnail sketches of data that succinctly convey patterns. When Nat Torkington used sparklines to show reviewer voting patterns for OSCON program committee, it seemed a helpful addition to make to Expectnation.</p> <p>The profile of each reviewer is interesting &mdash; are they a harsh marker, or liberal with the top grades? &mdash; but sparklines really come into their own when drawn per proposal. Here are some small screenshots from this year's XTech voting, anonymized of course.<br /></p> <h3>High flyers</h3> <p><img width="185" height="15" alt="High scoring chart" src="/asset/name/24/high-1.png" /></p> <p>Reviewers are pretty unanimous about this proposal, as 4.0 is the top grade in our scoring system. The lack of variance suggests that I ought to ensure that all the assigned reviewers put in their scores &mdash; this could be just one person voting.&nbsp;</p> <p><img width="185" height="15" alt="High scoring chart" src="/asset/name/25/high-2.png" /></p> <p><img width="185" height="15" alt="High scoring chart" src="/asset/name/26/high-3.png" /></p> <p>These next two are the pretty typical distribution for highly graded proposals: mostly top marks and a few average ones.&nbsp;</p> <h3>Middle ranking</h3><p>Some of the more interesting trends show up when the scoring isn't biased to either the top or bottom ends of the scale.&nbsp;</p> <p><img width="185" height="15" src="/asset/name/30/medium-1.png" alt="Medium scoring chart" /></p><p>The reviewers are unanimous about this paper's soundness. It's not made anyone go &quot;wow&quot;, but there's nothing to grumble about either.&nbsp;</p> <p><img width="185" height="15" src="/asset/name/31/medium-2.png" alt="Medium scoring chart" /></p><p>This proposal clearly polarises opinion, and is such stands a better chance than the unanimous 3.0 above. Perhaps the subject matter or approach is controversial or timely.<br /></p> <p><img width="185" height="15" src="/asset/name/32/medium-3.png" alt="Medium scoring chart" /></p><p>Another proposal that divides the reviewers' opinions. It's also worth me checking here that I don't either have a pathologically strict reviewer, or at the other end, a reviewer with a wild passion for the cause this paper advocates.&nbsp;</p> <h3>Low scoring</h3> <p>The quality of submissions is usually so good that I don't give low graded proposals much attention, but the sparklines could alert me to potential oversights.&nbsp;</p><p><img width="185" height="15" src="/asset/name/27/low-1.png" alt="Low scoring chart" /></p><p>This proposal seems to polarise opinion between &quot;rubbish&quot; and &quot;ok&quot;, so it's interesting to me to check out the subject matter and see if I'm missing something with potential.&nbsp;</p> <p><img width="185" height="15" src="/asset/name/28/low-2.png" alt="Low scoring chart" /></p> <p><img width="185" height="15" src="/asset/name/29/low-3.png" alt="Low scoring chart" /></p> <p>These proposals were not received at all well.</p><p>In summary, I'm delighted to find a solid practical application for sparklines. My thanks to Nat Torkington for the inspiration.&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/03/06-sparklines#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> OpenID and microformats support on XTech site http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/02/27-openid-uformats Two useful new additions to the Expectnation conference system: decentralized identity support and easy ways to integrate the schedule with your calendar xtech semweb expectnation openid microformats Edd Dumbill 2007-02-27T10:08:42Z <p>Thanks in no small part to the advocacy of <a href="http://simonwillison.net/">Simon Willison</a>, I've just <a href="http://openid.net/">OpenID</a>-enabled the <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/">XTech</a> web site.</p> <p style="float: right; margin-left: 8px"><img width="196" height="195" src="/asset/name/22/enation-openid.png" alt="OpenID log in box on Expectnation" /> </p> <p>Users can now create their accounts using an OpenID, or associate an OpenID with an existing account.</p> <p>A single-sign on solution like OpenID solves an important problem for us, as most people tend to interact with our conference web sites in only one or two time periods each year. While we've gone to the trouble of making retrieving a password easy, there's still the mental burden on the user of setting up the account and noting it down somewhere.</p> <p>As a measure of the impact of this on me personally: I habitually save registration confirmation emails in a certain mail folder. Since 1997 I have collected no fewer than 572 of these, and I'm sure some have been missed!</p> <p>One other cool thing about OpenID is that finally I can get the identity I wish to have. No longer do I have to be a compulsive early adopter of every service just to get the name <em>edd</em>. (Well, as long as said service integrates OpenID of course!) Personal branding is an important attractive aspect of OpenID.</p><h3>Implementation</h3><p>Implementing OpenID using the Ruby <em>ruby-openid</em> gem was quite straightforward, as was the logical integration into our user models. I've not been the only one following this path recently, as illustrated by <a href="http://www.danwebb.net/2007/2/27/the-no-shit-guide-to-supporting-openid-in-your-applications">this post on Rails OpenID integration</a> from Dan Webb.</p><p>The harder problem of deploying OpenID lies in making the user interface work well: ultimately that will have a huge influence over its uptake.</p> <p>We've made a decent first go of it in <a href="http://www.expectnation.com/">Expectnation</a>, but I'm sure we'll evolve and improve it over time. The main puzzling thing is how obvious to make the OpenID facility, given its relatively small take-up right now. We don't want to confuse normal users too much by using it.</p> <h3>Microformats</h3> <p>When I did my <a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/02/23-xtech">behind-the-scenes piece</a> on the building of the XTech schedule last week, one feature I didn't discuss was the support for <a href="http://microformats.org/">microformats</a> we have in the schedule and on the session pages. If you use a tool such as <a href="http://labs.mozilla.com/2006/12/introducing-operator">Operator</a>, you can easily save talk times to your calendar while reading the schedule.<br /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><img width="404" height="274" src="/asset/name/23/microformats.png" alt="XTech schedule microformats" /></p> <p>I'm personally a little late to the microformats party. Being a fan of pragmatic RDF, I didn't see much need for microformats right away. However, with tools like Operator I can honestly say that the use of microformats does enhance the XTech schedule.</p><p>My impressions of microformats (in particular hCalendar and hCard) from using them are mixed. One the plus side, it was very easy to do. On the negative side, I found them restrictive in the sense that for the metadata to be present in the hCalendar object, it needs to be part of the HTML presentation.</p><p>So, while microformats are meant to be about making human readable data useful for computers, they can have a tail-wagging effect on the human markup. Let me elaborate.</p><p> In the conference schedule there is a grid overview. For readability here we want to keep the details down to a minimum in each box. There is definitely no need to repeat the date of each presentation when you can see there's a grid per day.</p><p>But also we want to have microformats available in the page so users can use the grid to pick off talks to add to their calendar. The only details you currently get from the microformat are those you physically include inside the <em>div</em> marked as <em>vevent</em>. This means we can't embed the full details, such as the talk description. It also means I indulge in some dubious markup practices (an empty <em>abbr</em> element) in order to get the date and time into each hCalendar object.</p><p>It seems to me that this could be ameliorated by more intelligent user agent behaviour. Each of my hCalendar events is given a URL. At the end of that URL is a full description of the event, using microformats. So, as long as I reference the URL in a summary page, the user agent can beetle off and pull down the full information, in much the same sort of way that <a href="http://www.foaf-project.org/">FOAF</a> uses the <em>rdfs:seeAlso</em> property.</p><p>So, remove the expectation that microformats provide complete data, and I'm sold.</p><h3>Other schedule features: iCal, Upcoming.org<br /></h3><p>Of course, we have iCalendar support in the XTech <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/schedule">schedule</a>, so you can subscribe conventionally using iCal, Evolution or a similar program. <a href="http://www.aaronstraupcope.com/">Aaron Straup Cope</a> took the iCalendar, and uploaded each event into Upcoming.org. If you look at the <a href="http://upcoming.org/tag/xtech07/">upcoming events tagged xtech07</a>, you see the results of his work.</p><p>This foreshadows some of the social elements we plan to add to Expectnation itself: indicating your intent to attend a talk, and adding comments to it. As a program chair I'm finding this quite fascinating to watch.<br /></p> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/02/27-openid-uformats#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> XTech 2007 schedule: behind the scenes http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/02/23-xtech The building of the XTech 2007 schedule. xtech expectnation conferences Edd Dumbill 2007-02-23T15:10:00Z <p>After a couple of months' hard work, I've <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/schedule/grid">posted the schedule for XTech 2007</a>. And, though I say so myself, it looks good.</p> <p style="float: right; margin-left: 8px"><a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/schedule/grid"><img width="304" height="270" border="0" src="http://times.usefulinc.com/asset/name/19/grid.png" alt="XTech 2007 grid" /></a> </p> <p>You can read more about the schedule itself <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/2007/02/22-schedule-posted">over on the XTech web site</a>, but I thought it would be interesting to explain how we got there.</p> <h3>The people bit&nbsp;</h3> <p>After the <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/cfp/1">call for participation</a>, we wound up with 200 proposals in the system. From there, the target was to get down to 5 tutorials and 68 presentations.</p> <p>Each proposal contains an abstract of at most 500 words. I enlisted a small army of reviewers (69 in all) to help, and assigned four or five reviewers to each abstract. 829 reviews were assigned in all. The reviewers work blind, so they don't get to see who the proposer is.<br /> </p> <p>After the review, I read every score and proposal, and created a shortlist of the best scoring proposals plus those that had spuriously low scores given their quality. From this shortlist the hard graft of preparing a draft schedule started.</p> <p>We had already decided in advance on our usual format: four parallel tracks of browsers, core tech, applications and open data. I then filled in the schedule, aiming to create themes for days, or at least for the 2-session blocks.</p> <p>The draft schedule and details of those shortlisted but who missed the cut were circulated among the committee. After some iteration and feedback the final schedule emerged.</p> <p>Picking tutorials was a little different, as this is done by myself and the committee directly. The constraints on choice are more commercially-oriented. Experience has shown we need mainstream topics that people will be happy to pay for. Even so, each year we try to include one emerging topic. Last year, it was Rails. This year, it's <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/schedule/detail/185">OpenStreetMap</a>.<br /> </p> <p>Choices made, I then notified the speakers, awaited their confirmation, and reached the point where we could publish the schedule.</p> <h3>The mechanics of it all</h3> <p>A glib reading of the above would make it all sound quite simple. And this year I'm pleased to report that it was a lot simpler than previous years. We have been able to use <a href="http://www.expectnation.com/">Expectnation</a> from beginning to end, which has streamlined a lot of the work.&nbsp;</p> <p> Expectnation's my super startup that's taking up the time that XTech and fatherhood don't! I'm about to tell you why it's wonderful, so please forgive a little pride.<br /> </p> <p>Gathering the proposals was easy once the CFP had been set up inside Expectnation. I set up three calls: one for presentations, one for tutorials, and a secret one that the public doesn't get to see. (We always need a secret one for people who have very good reasons why they didn't make the public deadlines.)</p> <p style="float: right; margin-left: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px"><img width="218" height="210" alt="Request response" src="http://times.usefulinc.com/asset/name/20/Picture_27.png" /></p> <h4>The review phase</h4> <p>Recruiting reviewers was done by Expectnation's request system. This lets me send a request to a large number of people simultaneously, and collect their responses via the web app. (Previously, this had involved email, spreadsheets and wasted time.) The chart you see to the right shows the breakdown of the response to this request.</p> <p>If a reviewer said 'yes', they added a note to say which types of proposal they would review, and signed up for an account in the system.</p> <p>I then passed through every paper assigning four or five appropriate reviewers. A quick search each time allowed me to look for the right reviewers, and ensure no one reviewer got overloaded with work.</p> <p>Once reviewers were assigned, I headed over to the Mailroom department. Expectnation has a large number of configurable mailing targets, one of which is &quot;reviewers with work to do&quot;. I emailed each reviewer with details of how to get on with the reviewing.</p> <p>Every reviewer then logged into Expectnation, saw the proposals they needed to review, and used the interface to efficiently score the proposals. One big lesson here is that it needs to be very efficient if you want to get the best reviewers, who are often the busiest.</p> <p>Another wizzy graph enabled me to keep track of the reviews, and the mailroom let me send out a reminder to those reviewers who hadn't finished their work yet, when the time for the close of reviewing drew near.</p> <h4>Picking the papers</h4> <p style="float: right; margin-left: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px"><img width="217" height="247" alt="Gridding out XTech 2007" src="/asset/name/21/gridding.png" /></p> <p>Expectnation lets me sort and filter proposals pretty flexibly, so I went through the papers for each track in turn, ordered by their review score. Anything scored 3 or higher (4 is best, 1 is worst) was almost certain to be shortlisted. I read all the reviews and the abstract, and moderated any score that was unusually low (for some reason, reviewers rarely overrate proposals!)</p> <p>The next step was to set up the empty grid, shown in the top half of the diagram to the right. Here I added the empty time slots to the rooms we had, and assigned putative tracks to each of the rooms (they can be swapped around later if needed.)</p> <p>After that, the scheduling can start, shown in the second half of the picture to the right. Each empty slot can be assigned a paper from the shortlist for the relevant topic. That way it's easy to &quot;paint on&quot; talks into each room and quickly get a sense for the overall flow of the conference.</p> <p>Once it was time to finalize matters, I mass-marked all the scheduled papers as accepted, which automatically sent a notification to the presenters, using the same request system as for reviewers. When a speaker confirms, their proposal status changes and they appear in the final <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/schedule/grid">public grid</a>. From there, I am able to use the mailroom again to inform speakers of the information they need to know. Additionally, speakers can log into the system at any time to see when they've been scheduled to speak.<br /> </p> <p>Gridding out the conference in Expectnation is probably the biggest timesaver of all. Previously this involved a lot of sketching on paper or a spreadsheet, and a lot of manual work notifying people, and then more work creating the timetable to go on the web site. Now, both the grid and a <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/schedule/full">full web of abstracts and speaker details</a> are generated automatically.</p> <h3>What next?</h3> <p>As you can probably tell, I'm rather excited about both XTech 2007 and also about the work we're doing with Expectnation.</p> <p>What's next for XTech is the process of publicising the conference among attendees, recruiting session moderators, and also the writing of papers by the presenters. As the conference draws nearer, the attendee-level interactive features of Expectnation will kick in, allowing personal scheduling and rating of sessions.</p> <p>What's next for Expectnation is that we're ramping up to our 1.0 launch. We're working with a handful of early adopter customers right now, and are always interested in new use cases. As we get nearer the end of the first tranche of engineering work, we're going to gear up the publicity effort and start explaining to the world why we're special.</p> <p>As usual, I'd <a href="mailto:edd-web@usefulinc.com">love to hear</a> questions, feedback and suggestions.</p> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/02/23-xtech#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Conference roundup: XTech, ETech, OSCON http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/01/15-conferences XTech's cogitating, ETech's open for business and OSCON is open for proposals. xtech conferences Edd Dumbill 2007-01-15T15:16:17Z <p>A brief update concerning the conferences with which I am involved.</p><p><a href="http://2007.xtech.org/">XTech 2007</a>, of which I'm chair, is progressing well. We've had a large number of submissions and the review process is proceeding apace. Speakers will be notified on February 2nd, and we hope to publish the schedule very soon after. Now's the time to think about joining us in Paris, May 15-18th.<br /></p><p>The O'Reilly <a href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/etech/">Emerging Technologies Conference</a>, aka ETech 2007, for which I'm a member of the program committee, is now <a href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/52/register.html">open for registration</a>. Be in San Diego this March to connect with the brightest cultivators of tomorrow's tech.</p><p>Also from O'Reilly, the <a href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2007/">2007 Open Source Convention</a> is now <a href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2007/create/e_sess">open for proposals</a>. OSCON needs no introduction from me, I'm sure. I've been on the program committee for some years now, brooding over Linux, XML and other topics. Deadline for proposal submission is February 5th.<br /></p><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2007/01/15-conferences#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Deadlines to focus the mind http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/12/20-xtech-deadline Douglas Adams may have loved the sound of them as they whooshed by, but a conference organizer can't live without them. xtech expectnation Edd Dumbill 2006-12-20T12:40:49Z <p>Here is a graph showing the number of proposals sent in for <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/">XTech 2007</a> over the last two weeks.</p> <p><img width="379" height="228" alt="Proposals submitted for XTech" src="http://times.usefulinc.com/asset/name/16/xtech-graph.png" title="Proposals submitted for XTech" /></p><p>The actual deadline date is the highest bar. The Monday after, when everybody realised they'd missed the deadline, is the second highest bar. Of course, it's an open secret that tech conferences regularly extend their deadlines to account for such things. I am probably stricter than most programme chairs in this respect.<br /></p><p>This year we <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/2006/12/20-cfp-over">got over 200 proposals</a>. That means over three proposals to each slot, so choosing's going to be tough.</p><p>This graph is one of the bits of helpful eye candy <a href="http://www.expectnation.com/">ExpectNation</a> gives me. As the conference organization proceeds I'll publish some other interesting details about the inner workings of XTech.</p><p>Meanwhile, I'm overwhelmed as usual with the quality of conference submissions, and will enjoy the task of reading each one this week.&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/12/20-xtech-deadline#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> JavaScript frameworks, new heroes of the web http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/12/14-js-heroes A brief expression of delight at the progress in JavaScript frameworks. xtech web javascript Edd Dumbill 2006-12-14T12:28:17Z <p>Makers of <a href="http://dojotoolkit.org/">Dojo</a>, <a href="http://prototype.conio.net/">Prototype</a>, <a href="http://jquery.com/">jQuery</a> and <a href="http://mochikit.com/">Mochikit</a>, I salute you.</p><p>It is immensely gratifying that there are those with the courage and sense to make JavaScript in the browser workable for the rest of us. Like many busy developers, I've steered myself away from hacking JavaScript for many years. Cross-browser incompatibilities, the troubles of debugging and the relatively small reward for effort have kept me focusing on the server side (not to mention the temptation JavaScript poses to those prone to stray from the REST religion).</p><p>This is now starting to change. The immense efforts of JavaScript developers are providing frameworks that allow developers to work on the client side with something approaching the elegance and concision that we can now wield on the server side.</p><p>One of the wonderful things about the web is that it has become the forum for its own improvement. JavaScript has ensured that this is now true of the browser too. New techniques can be proved in script before they ever need baking into a markup language.</p><p>Even the most ardent of declarative programming hacks will appreciate the way toolkits such as jQuery allow painting of behaviour onto pages rather than littering semantic markup with snippets of script.</p><p>The problem that faces us now is: which JavaScript framework to choose?</p><p>As is my habit in programming languages, I've found myself move from framework to framework depending on the actual tools available. Starting off in Prototype as it came with Rails, paying a happy visit to jQuery because of <a href="http://jquery.com/demo/thickbox/">Thickbox</a>, considering Dojo because of its rich text editor, and now being wowed by <a href="http://www.liquidx.net/plotkit/">Plotkit</a> and thus checking out Mochikit.</p><p>So, here's an idea for aspiring <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/">XTech</a> presenters: we'd love to hear more about these toolkits. Experiences, future plans for the kits themselves, and how developers should choose between them.</p><ul><li><a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/2006/10/31-cfp-open">XTech 2007 call for participation</a>. Closes this weekend, so hurry!&nbsp;</li></ul><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/12/14-js-heroes#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> XTech CFP ends this week http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/12/13-xtech-cfp-closes-soon Don't forget to get your submission in for XTech 2007 -- the call for participation closes at the end of this week! xtech Edd Dumbill 2006-12-13T22:35:54Z <p>There are only a few days left until the close of the XTech 2007 <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/2006/10/31-cfp-open">call for participation</a>. XTech 2007 will be held 15-18 May 2007 in Paris, France.<br /></p> <p>As I <a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/11/02-xtech-cfp">wrote last month</a>, the theme for this year's conference is &quot;The Ubiquitous Web&quot;, reflecting the many ways, places and devices through which we now interact with and are affected by the web.</p> <p>XTech 2007 will be comprised of <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/tracks">four thematic tracks</a>:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/tracks#apps">Applications</a>: web applications, vocabularies, publishing, content management, case studies</li> <li><a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/tracks#browser">Browser Technologies</a>: browsers, mobile, user interface, related issues and standards.</li> <li><a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/tracks#core">Core Technology</a>: the heart of web technology, markup, protocols, semantics and more.</li> <li><a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/tracks#opendata">Open Data</a>: technology, experiences and policy behind open access to data.</li> </ul><p>All these topic suggestions are of course just that; don't feel you are limited to topics mentioned explicitly in the call.</p><p>XTech is always topical, so to take that angle, we'll be expecting to hear about things such as Second Life, mobile and geolocative services, progress in open standards, Ajax toolkits, OpenDocument vs Microsoft Open XML, copyright, identity, best design practices and more.</p><p>Just a few more tips based on submissions so far:</p><ul><li>Don't worry if you can't decide which track your submission falls into: just say so in the notes, and the programme committee can place it appropriately.</li><li>If you have something super-secret you can't talk about yet, but can do by May 2007, <a href="mailto:edd-web@usefulinc.com">write to me personally</a> and we'll try to come to a suitable arrangement.</li><li>If you have a great excuse why you need just a few more days to respond to the call, also <a href="mailto:edd-web@usefulinc.com">let me know</a>.</li></ul><p>Otherwise, <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/cfp">propose away</a>!</p><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/12/13-xtech-cfp-closes-soon#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> XTech 2007 is go! http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/11/02-xtech-cfp I've just published the call for participation for XTech 2007. Hurry there now and get involved! xtech expectnation Edd Dumbill 2006-11-02T19:34:24Z <p>I've just published the <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/2006/10/31-cfp-open">call for participation</a> for <a href="http://2007.xtech.org/">XTech 2007</a>.</p><p>The theme for this year&rsquo;s conference is &ldquo;The Ubiquitous Web&rdquo;. As the web reaches further into our lives, we will consider the increasing ubiquity of connectivity, what it means for real world objects to be connected with the web, and the increasing blurring of the lines between virtual worlds and our own.</p><p>XTech will have its usual <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/tracks">four tracks</a>: <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/tracks#apps">Applications</a>, <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/tracks#browser">Browser Technologies</a>, <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/tracks#core">Core Technology</a>, <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/content/tracks#opendata">Open Data</a>. Keynotes addresses will be given by Adam Greenfield, author of &ldquo;Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing&rdquo;, Gavin Starks of Global Cool and designers of the future Matt Webb and Jack Schulze.</p><p>Head over to the <a href="http://xtech.expectnation.com/event/1/public/cfp">call pages</a> and submit your proposal. The deadline is 15 December 2006. The conference itself is in Paris, France, 15-18 May 2007.<br /></p><p><strong>Expectnation</strong></p><p>The publication of the XTech call is doubly exciting for me. XTech 2007 will be the first conference to be managed completely from <a href="http://www.expectnation.com/">Expectnation</a>, the software I've been building over the course of the last year.</p><p>Expectnation is a web-based system for managing conferences and training events. Right now we're conducting tests with some customers, and are working hard on readying the system for a public trial.</p><p>The particular strengths of Expectnation include the management of speakers, proposals and delegates. If you would like to stay informed of our progress, there's a place to sign up for news on the <a href="http://www.expectnation.com/">Expectnation</a> home page.</p><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/11/02-xtech-cfp#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> The best of XTech 2006 http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/10/04-best-of-xtech-2006 A look back at some of the best received presentations from XTech 2006. xtech web Edd Dumbill 2006-10-04T16:07:37Z <p>As I'm finalising the call for participation for <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/2006/07/12-xtech-2007">XTech 2007</a> (15-18 May 2007, Paris, France), I've taken a look back at the some of the best received presentations from the <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/">2006 conference</a>. I thought them well worth sharing again here.</p> <p>To be sure of hearing about the call for participation and other XTech 2007 news, <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/public/newsletter">sign up for the newsletter</a> or keep an eye on this blog.</p> <strong><a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/178">Native to a Web of Data: Designing a part of the Aggregate Web</a></strong><em><br />Tom Coates (Yahoo!)</em> <blockquote> <p>What are the architectural elements of the emerging web of data; how do you build services to thrive in this environment? What needs to change and what needs to return to fundamental principles? How do we bring it all together to make something awesome?</p> </blockquote> <ul> <li><a href="http://strange.corante.com/archives/2006/05/18/xtech_2006_tom_coates_native_to_a_web_of_data_designing_a_part_of_the_aggregate_web.php">Read Suw Charman's report of this talk</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/125">An open (data) can of worms</a></strong><em><br /> Paul Hammond (Yahoo!, ex-BBC)</em></p> <blockquote> <p>Open data is not a panacea, and presents as many questions as answers. Technology can only solve some of these issues, this presentation outlines some of the other, more fundamental, problems.<br /> </p> </blockquote> <ul> <li><a href="http://strange.corante.com/archives/2006/05/18/xtech_2006_paul_hammond_an_open_data_can_of_worms.php">Read Suw Charman's report of this talk</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/84">Etna, a WYSIWYG XML RELAX NG and Gecko-based editor</a></strong><em><br /> Daniel Glazman (Disruptive Innovations)</em></p> <p>A presentation of the new WYSIWYG XML editor based on Gecko, and its underlying implementation of RELAX NG.</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/paper/84">Read the full paper</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/194">How American are startups?</a></strong><em><br /> Paul Graham (Y Combinator)</em></p> <blockquote> <p>Startups are largely an American phenomenon. Why? What is it about America that makes startups work there? Could Silicon Valley be replicated in another country?<br /> </p> </blockquote> <p>Written up as two essays:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html">How to be Silicon Valley</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html">Why Startups Condense in America</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/93">The power of declarative thinking</a></strong><em><br /> Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI)</em></p> <blockquote> <p>This talk discussed the requirements for Web Applications, and the underpinnings necessary to make Web Applications follow in the same spirit that engendered the Web in the first place.</p> </blockquote> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/05-24-steven-declarative/">Read Pemberton's slides</a></li> </ul> <p><strong><a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/58">RDF/A: The Easy Way to Publish Your Metadata</a></strong><em><br /> Mark Birbeck (x-port.net Ltd.)</em></p> <blockquote> <p>RDF/A is a new, and simpler, way of adding metadata to documents, in such a way that the document contains its own metadata--making it easy to turn a home page into a FoaF file or RSS feed.</p> </blockquote> <ul> <li><a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/paper/58">Read full paper</a></li> </ul> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/10/04-best-of-xtech-2006#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> So, you missed XTech? http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/05/23-xtech XTech's over, but you can relive it on the web! xtech Edd Dumbill 2006-05-23T23:22:42Z <p>If you missed being at <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/">XTech 2006</a>, no need to worry, there's some great coverage out on various blogs right now.</p><p><a href="http://www.suw.org.uk/">Suw Charman</a> has some detailed transcripts of sessions she attended. Find them via the &quot;related entries&quot; bit of her <a href="http://strange.corante.com/archives/2006/05/23/xtech_2006_wrapup.php">XTech wrap-up post</a>. I'd not had the pleasure of meeting Suw before last week, and I was enormously happy that she came to speak at the conference and contributed so generously in her blogging.</p><p>(I also had a very interesting conversation with Suw about venues in London, which is all I'll say for now, but watch this space for news of a plot I'm cooking up for later this year.)&nbsp;</p><p>Thomas Vander Wal has also <a href="http://www.vanderwal.net/random/entrysel.php?blog=1823">written about</a> his XTech experiences. It thrills me to bits that we were able to <a href="http://www.vanderwal.net/random/entrysel.php?blog=1824">challenge and stimulate</a> established web experts and newcomers alike.</p><p>I'm really grateful to everybody who has blogged about XTech. It really improves the experience for everyone, and reaches out to those who were unable to attend. Through <a href="http://www.planetxtech.org/">Planet XTech</a> we were all able to get instant feedback and reflection on the conference. I've tried to read every word that has been written, good and bad, and will fold what I've learned into the planning for next year's event.&nbsp;</p><p>And now is not the time to rest. XTech 2007 will be held in Paris, in May 2007. I will very shortly be announcing the theme and confirming exact dates and venue.<br /></p><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/05/23-xtech#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Live from XTech http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/05/18-xtech Tired but happy at the XTech 2006 conference. xtech Edd Dumbill 2006-05-18T11:14:03Z <p>Well, <a href="http://xtech.org/">it's finally arrived</a> and here I am in the middle of it all.<br /></p><p><strong>Rails fun</strong><br /><br />The week kicked off with <a href="http://www.hackdiary.com/">Matt</a> and I teaching our <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/188">tutorial on Ruby on Rails</a>. It was the first time we've taught on that topic, so we were interested to hear the opinions of the attendees. We embarked on a fast-paced day-long tour of Rails features, with a large amount of live coding on screen.</p><p>The aim was to give attendees an understanding of Rails as an environment for developing web applications, to let them see how fun it was to code (especially tests) and provide a bucket full of jumping off points for them to pursue their own investigations. With six or seven deployed Rails applications between us, we're in a good position to talk as real-world developers.<br /></p><p>I think we pretty much succeeded. During the day we saw many places to improve the material and the flow, but the concept was sound. Teaching together meant we gave each other energy, humour and support. From the feedback, everybody was kept entertained and engaged as well as educated. </p><p>Folks went away with the slides and the source code for the application we developed over the day. We thought about making our own course notes, but really there's nothing better than the Pragmatic Rails book, so there didn't seem much point in duplicating that effort.<br /></p><p>We'd certainly like to do it again, and we're interested in visiting companies interested in Rails to bring their developer teams up to speed: we've already heard from one company attending the conference about that. So do <a href="mailto:edd-web@usefulinc.com?subject=Rails%20training">get in touch</a> if that interests you.</p><p><strong>Keynotes</strong></p><p>Paul Graham kicked off the conference with a provocative keynote comparing the conditions in the EU and US, and their suitability for stimulating startup companies. This has already sparked off a lot of discussion on the web, which is great to see. I'm really grateful to Paul for travelling a long distance to speak to us.</p><p>We also heard from Jeffrey McManus of Yahoo! (I can never write &quot;Yahoo!'s Jeffrey McManus&quot; because the consequent train-wreck of punctuation upsets me). He shared the remarkable number of APIs and places where Yahoo! lets developers hook into their data and services. There's <a href="http://developer.yahoo.com/">so much in there</a>, I resolved to put some serious time aside to investigate what I could make use of.<br /></p><p><strong>Coverage</strong></p><p>The site I set up for last year's conference, <a href="http://www.planetxtech.org/">Planet XTech</a>, is doing a great job aggregating blog coverage of XTech again this year. It's a great way for people here, and those following from a distance, to keep up with what's going on. Some folks are blogging really detailed notes, which is fantastic for the talks I've not been able to get to.</p><p><strong>Next year</strong></p><p>In a couple of weeks' time, I'll start thinking about next year's conference. I'll try to pull together what we've learned this year to make XTech even better. One thing we know already is that this year is our last in Amsterdam. We've been here three years and had a lot of fun. Next year, we're heading to Paris, which will be wonderful.</p><p>Please do <a href="mailto:edd-web@usefulinc.com">write to me</a> with any comments and suggestions about XTech. One idea I'm playing with is the idea of a smaller related event later in the year, focused on educating people about web technologies.</p><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/05/18-xtech#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> XTech: one week and counting http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/05/06-changing-up Just one week now until XTech, the pinnacle of the year's planning for me. xtech Edd Dumbill 2006-05-06T12:15:48Z <p>It's now just one week until <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/">XTech 2006</a>.</p><p>This is the point that the whole of the last year has been leading up to for me. It's now I can let myself stop being stressed and start to let the excitement in.</p><p>You know how sometimes you look back at stuff you've done, and go &quot;wow!&quot; -- that's pretty much where I am right now. I've run out of superlatives to apply to the speaker lineup. I've thrilled that we'll be joined by just about the entire <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/topic/6">Mozilla project</a>, <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/topic/11">Paul Graham, Jeff Barr, Jeffrey McManus</a>, <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/101">huge chunks</a> <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/78">of the</a> <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/97">BBC</a> <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/32">brains</a> <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/125">trust</a>, the <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/topic/4">smartest people in XML and the semantic web</a>, <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/topic/8">Ajax pioneers and thinkers</a>, <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/topic/9">top-class instructors</a> and <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/">so much more</a>.</p><p>Last-minute XTech happenings of interest include:</p><ul><li><a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/2006/05/03-google-data">Google join the schedule line-up</a>, talking about GData.</li><li>We've put an advert for XTech on Ryan Carson's new magazine for web developers, <a href="http://www.thinkvitamin.com/">Vitamin</a>. I've been enjoying Ryan's straightforward approach to web business recently, so I hope this works out well.</li><li>For your inner techie, web caching expert Mark Nottingham joins the XTech program, talking about <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/203">what's needed to support fast delivery of today's more dynamic web applications</a>.</li><li>We've added a <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/2006/04/22-devcorner">Developers' Corner</a> to the exhibition, where anybody with a project and a laptop can set up to show off their stuff. With the calibre of people floating round, this is a great chance to find collaborators and maybe more.</li><li>A <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/2006/05/06-ical">downloadable iCal schedule</a> so there's no excuse for missing anything.<br /></li></ul><p>Finally, just a note that it's never too late to come along. If you've not registered, just turn up on the day and pay on the door. It's an easy flight to Amsterdam, a short train ride to Centraal and a short walk to the <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/content/venue">hotel</a>.</p><p>See you there!&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/05/06-changing-up#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Catching up http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/04/10-catchup I've been on blogging hiatus for a long time, but here's some updates as to what I've been doing. XTech, MacBook, Debian, Rails. xtech linux rails apple Edd Dumbill 2006-04-10T22:56:32Z <p>Most of my energy recently has been devoted to organising things for <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/">XTech 2006</a>, now just over a month away.</p> <p>Here are some XTech-related snippets:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.mozilla.com/">Mozilla Corporation</a> has joined as a co-host. We'll have six Mozilla related presentations, plus a keynote about JavaScript 2 from Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich.</li> <li>The <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/content/ajax">Ajax Developers' Day</a> continues to take shape. We're looking to add a <em>Ajax toolkit lightning demo</em> session at the end of the day. <a href="mailto:edd-web@usefulinc.com">Contact me</a> if you or your company wants to take part in this.<br /> </li> <li><a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/2006/04/05-barcamp">BarCamp Amsterdam II will be taking place directly after XTech</a>. This will be a free-form participant-led conference, held over the weekend. Many XTech speakers and attendees are likely to hang around to take part.</li> </ul> <p><strong>MacBook</strong>&nbsp;</p> <p>My new computer has arrived, an Apple MacBook Pro. I know I wrote some time ago about how disappointing it was for free software advocates to be using a non-free OS, and I am rather sad about this in some ways. I'll be writing in the near future about my impressions of the platform, and reasons for buying this machine.</p> <p><strong>Writing</strong></p> <p>My latest piece on Debian has been published over at O'Reilly, <a href="http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/04/06/aptitude_and_apt_get.html">Installing Software on Debian</a>. We've been a little slow getting through the publication of these, so I'll try and hurry the next few along.</p> <p><strong>Rails</strong></p> <p>Rails continues to impress. I wish I had more time than I do to use it, as it feels so <em>right</em> to work with. With <a href="http://hackdiary.com/">Matt Biddulph</a> I'll be <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/detail/188">teaching a day on Rails</a> at XTech 2006. In the meantime, I highly recommend Chad Fowler's <a href="http://pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/fr_rr/index.html">Rails Recipes</a>, it covers the most common requirements from real-world web applications.</p> <p>Oh, and I'm scheduled to attend <a href="http://railsconf.org/">RailsConf</a> this June. My paper was (not too surprisingly) declined for the conference, but <a href="http://railsconf.org/talks/selected/show/122">Matt's was accepted</a>. </p> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/04/10-catchup#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Ajax day finalised http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/03/28-ajax-xtech Alex Russell's keynoting, Simon Willison's chairing. The talent is too much! xtech ajax Edd Dumbill 2006-03-28T16:19:40Z I've got some exciting news about the <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/content/ajax">Ajax Developers' Day at XTech</a>, which is on Tuesday 16 May. Ajax guru <a href="http://alex.dojotoolkit.org">Alex Russell</a> of the Dojo toolkit project will be delivering the day's keynote presentation. He's subjecting himself to a punishing flight schedule on our behalf, so I'm grateful that he's able to take part.<br /><br />In addition, Yahoo! genius <a href="http://simon.incutio.com/">Simon Willison</a> will be chairing the Ajax day. As well as delivering a talk on the Yahoo! interface toolkit, Simon will be marshaling the speakers and discussion so everybody gets the best out of the day.<br /><br /><a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/content/registration">Be there</a>, or forever regret your old fashioned UI.<br /><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/03/28-ajax-xtech#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> New XTech web site, and why we don't sell presentation space http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/03/14-xtech I've finished the design and implementation of the new XTech web site, and we've published the full conference schedule on it. xtech ajax Edd Dumbill 2006-03-14T14:52:55Z <p>My too-long absence from writing much here can be ascribed to two, differently pleasant, activities. First, a fantastic vacation in Cuba, and second, the redesign and launch of the <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/">XTech web site</a>.</p> <p>Of the first, come to my place for dinner and I'll bore you at length about how amazing it was. Of the second, I'd like to bore you right now!</p> <p>Thanks to Ruby on Rails and a few late nights, the XTech site now has these new features:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule">Full conference schedule</a> (apart from 6 Mozilla talks I'm still nailing down)</li> <li><a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/">A blog</a>. With go-faster Atom 1.0 stripes and everything!</li> <li>Details on the newly-added <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/content/ajax">Ajax Developers' Day</a>.</li> </ul> <p>A few more details on the Ajax Developers' Day. As I mentioned before, when putting together the schedule we felt there was a lot of excellent content still missed out (I'm still feeling guilty at having rejected proposals from many good friends and excellent speakers). So, we put together an extra day at the beginning of the conference where we could go further into detail on Ajax technologies.</p> <p>This day, featuring speakers such as Simon Willison from Yahoo!, XML expert Kurt Cagle and OpenLaszlo's Max Carlson, will allow those working on Ajax projects--either deployment or toolkits--to meet, discuss best practice and move forward on new ideas. Although it's a day-long event, we didn't want to make the price tag as high as a full-day tutorial, so you can <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/content/registration">register</a> for the cost of a half-day tutorial.</p> <h4>A few implementation details</h4> <p>If that all sounded a little like advertising, here are some technical details worth sharing. The site's CMS is built on Ruby on Rails. Development was done on Linux, with the help of WINE to check out the view from Internet Explorer. The <a href="http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/public/newsletter">newsletter</a> is managed by the absurdly wonderful <a href="http://www.campaignmonitor.com/">CampaignMonitor</a>.</p> <h4>This conference not for sale</h4> <p>Before I went on vacation, there was some debate in various quarters about paid-for plenary and keynote slots in conferences. Though I hope it is obvious, I wanted to state where I, and thus the XTech conference, stand on this issue.</p> <p>It has always been my policy to maintain a strict separation between the commercial and editorial aspects of XTech. Although each year there's always a company who thinks they can buy a speaking slot, I never let this happen. The content of the conference is formed by editorial selection by the programme committee, who take the scores from the peer review panel as their primary guide.</p> <p>Aside from what I hope shows in the excellent quality of the talks and generally interesting keynotes (yes, we get it wrong occasionally!), there are two effects on the conference.</p> <ul><li>Sponsors are that much more respected. When a sponsor respects the delegates' time and intelligence, but still attends, you know they're serious about engagement with attendees.<br /></li><li>A higher portion of the conference cost is in the registration fees than for some other conferences. We're still trying to keep the costs as low as we can, but we're not prepared to compromise the quality of the schedule by letting vendors buy talk time. </li></ul>I hope this explains a little of my position. As a stance, it often creates more issues for me than it solves, but I believe it preserves XTech's reputation as a conference where you can hear some of the best no-fluff presentations on web technology.<br /> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/03/14-xtech#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> XTech schedule coming soon http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/02/15-xtech I've just finished the initial selection of talks for XTech, we'll be publishing the full schedule in about a week's time. xtech rails xml Edd Dumbill 2006-02-15T21:24:05Z <p>The selections for <a href="http://xtech.org/">XTech</a> are now almost complete. Over the weekend I drafted the schedule, which is under review right now by the programme committee.</p> <p>Every year I say how hard a job this is because of the high standard of the submissions, and every year it seems to get harder. This year I found it almost heartbreaking to have to exclude some talks.</p> <h4>Number crunching</h4> <p>To illustrate, here are some statistics about the proposals and their selection. We received 177 submissions. Each of these abstracts were peer reviewed by at least 4 or 5 reviewers, from a panel of nearly 90 reviewers. From the graded results I shortlisted 105 proposals.</p> <p>From that 105 I have had to fill 68 schedule slots, which meant about a third of the shortlisted proposals had to be excluded. Almost every single one of these would have been a great talk. They were so good, in fact, that I'm working on some ideas for adding to the schedule.</p> <p>Notifications to accepted speakers will be sent at the beginning of next week. Rejection notices will follow a little while later. We don't want to send these out until we're sure we've done everything we can to accommodate as many quality presentations as possible.</p> <p>I am enormously grateful to everyone who submitted a proposal. I can't wait to get the acceptance notices sent out so we can publish the schedule.</p> <p> I can however reveal some early news about pre-conference tutorials. We'll have day-long tutorials on: Ruby on Rails; XSLT 2.0, XPath 2.0 &amp; XQuery; and a Web 2.0 tech bootcamp. Also there'll be half-day tutorials on microformats, and XForms &amp; XHTML 2.0.</p> <p>Finally, it's worth noting that <a href="http://www.xtech-conference.org/2006/registration.asp">registration is now open</a>. Also, if you work for somebody who would be interested in <a href="http://www.xtech-conference.org/2006/exhibits.asp">sponsoring the conference</a>, do get in touch. </p> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/02/15-xtech#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Places I'll be: Carson Summit, XTech, RailsConf http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/02/06-conferences Pointers to some tech conferences I'll be attending in the near future. xtech rails web Edd Dumbill 2006-02-06T20:20:51Z <p>The conference season starts again. Here are a few pointers to places where I'll be over the next few months.</p> <p><strong><a href="http://carsonworkshops.com/summit/">Carson Summit on the Future of Web Apps</a></strong></p> <p>I'm really impressed with the group of folks that Ryan Carson's got together for this event. The emphasis on &quot;lessons learned&quot; is important to me, so I look forward to hearing more.</p> <p>There's also a great connection in the topic with an article I wrote in October 1999, <a href="http://www.xml.com/pub/a/1999/10/open/">XML Inter-Application Protocols</a>, in which I rave about applications moving to the web, the need for open standards, and the important role of XML in that through RSS and web services. All the stuff we're still just figuring out how to use! <strong>7 February 2006, London</strong>.</p> <p><strong><a href="http://xtech.org/">XTech 2006</a></strong></p> <p>Being the conference chair I'm biased on this one, but it's safe to say that it's going to be an amazing event. Keynotes from Paul Graham, Amazon's Jeff Barr and Yahoo's Jeffrey McManus. Paper reviewing has just ended so next week we hope to publish a provisional conference schedule. <strong>16-19 May 2006, Amsterdam.</strong></p> <p><strong><a href="http://railsconf.com/">RailsConf</a></strong></p> <p>Very excited to be going to the first ever Rails conference. I submitted a proposal, about which I've not yet heard. Being one of 80 such proposals, it looks like the competition's tough, but I'll be there whether speaking or not.</p> <p>Though I'm arriving on June 21, I'm not booked in for the <a href="http://www.railsconf.org/pages/guidebook">Rails Guidebook</a> day, so I'm open to suggestions as to activities for June 22. <strong>22-25 June 2006, Chicago.</strong> </p> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/02/06-conferences#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Lovely DITA, DocBook fades? http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/01/23-dita With gross apologies for the punning title, I have a brief look at the rise and rise of DITA as seen through proposals to the XTech Applications track. xtech xml Edd Dumbill 2006-01-23T21:14:15Z <p>Sorry. Couldn't resist.</p> <p>Following on from my <a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/01/16-trends">previous look</a> at <a href="http://xtech.org/">XTech</a> proposals, I wanted to comment on one of the hot topics contributed to the Applications track. While this track will push all the buttons (we've got Rails, RSS, web services, content management and more) one of the really striking things was the number of proposals on the topic of DITA.</p> <p>If you're not a regular in the tech docs world, then DITA is probably at best just another acronym you've seen whizzing by. DITA stands for the <a href="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-dita1/" title="Introductory article on IBM developerWorks">Darwin Information Typing Architecture</a>, and it's a new document format making waves in the world of technical documentation.</p> <p>From a casual documenter's point of view, the obvious question is probably &quot;what does this mean for DocBook?&quot; Does the mass of enthusiasm mean DocBook's on its way out? In short, no.</p> <p><strong>DocBook and DITA compared</strong>&nbsp;</p> <p>DITA and DocBook are actually rather different beasts. DocBook is a sound DTD for writing technical books and articles, with the structure that such forms imply. DITA is focused on creating modular technical documents, with the intent for easy reuse across varied delivery methods. It's intended for topic-oriented documentation, which may be chopped about and rearranged within a variety of contexts and for a variety of display devices. </p> <p>DITA is a DTD and a set of rules for writing online contextual documentation such as software help files. There's a lot more to it than I'll write here, but here a few more differences between DocBook and DITA:</p> <ul> <li>DocBook is hierarchical, DITA separates content from context allowing multiple architectures of information</li> <li>DocBook is a fixed element and attribute set, DITA is extensible, allowing the definition of custom information types</li> <li>DocBook is much more mature than DITA, with a variety of solid tool support options. DITA's the new kid on the block.</li> <li>DocBook is well documented, DITA's documentation is still in the early stages.</li> </ul> <p>There's a real need for something like DITA, which addresses concerns that didn't really exist in the same way when DocBook first emerged at O'Reilly in the early 1990s.</p> <p><strong>DITA and open source projects</strong></p> <p>I'm looking forward to learning more about DITA, but one thing that immediately strikes me about it is its relevance to some of the documentation problems faced by open source projects. DocBook has never quite clicked as a documentation format for some collaboratively maintained projects, probably because the inevitable book-like nature of the result necessitates sole or restricted authorship, and heavy editing.</p> <p>Instead one of the increasingly popular ways for providing documentation has been the wiki. You guessed it, a topic-based architecture. What wikis seem to lack, however, is any way of providing a thought-out progression through the content. In essence, the information architecture side of things. Had I been able to attend every session from XTech last year, I'd have heard Paul Prescod talk about what <a href="http://idealliance.org/proceedings/xtech05/papers/03-02-04/">DITA and wikis</a> have in common.<br /> </p> <p>There may be a downside, however. DITA looks impressively engineered, but it may be too industrial-strength for many. My initial investigations suggests that while there's emergent commercial tool support, there's not much going on in the open source field (although there is the <a href="http://dita-ot.sourceforge.net/">DITA Open Toolkit</a>, which looks to have been produced in close association with OASIS <a href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=dita">technical committee now in charge of DITA</a>.)<br /> </p> <p>As DocBook guru Norm Walsh observes, <a href="http://norman.walsh.name/2005/10/21/dita">DocBook can play in this space too</a>. With additions such as those Norm proposes, DocBook could play host to DITA's major features. (Norm writes &quot;With a couple of hours of hacking, I've implemented on top of DocBook the four key features of DITA that I could identify.&quot;)</p> <p>Though these possibilities are intriguing, I think that, for open source projects, things need to get simpler rather than harder.</p> <p>More reading:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://idealliance.org/proceedings/xtech05/papers/04-02-02/">DITA--Getting Started</a> (XTech 2005 proceedings)</li> <li><a href="http://www.scriptorium.com/palimpsest/2006/01/to-dita-or-not-to-dita.html">To DITA or not to DITA?</a> (Palimpsest blog)</li> <li><a href="http://xml.coverpages.org/dita.html">Cover Pages: Darwin Information Typing Architecture</a> (Robin Cover)</li> <li><a href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/dita/faq.php">DITA FAQ</a> (OASIS)</li> <li><a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/8072">Going DITA</a> (O'Reilly weblogs) </li> </ul> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/01/23-dita#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Trends in core XML and RDF technologies http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/01/16-trends A review of the predominant topics submitted to the Core Technologies track for XTech 2006. xtech xml semweb Edd Dumbill 2006-01-16T23:11:21Z <p>As I sort through the proposals submitted for <a href="http://xtech.org/">XTech</a>, it's interesting to note which technologies and ideas dominate. I'll share some observations here as I work through them.</p><p>I've just completed a first review of the <a href="http://xtech.org/2006/tracks.asp#coretech">core technologies</a> track, which focuses on the nitty-gritty of XML and its related standards. These themes stood out:</p><ul><li><strong>Querying XML</strong></li><li><strong>XML database</strong> technology: XQuery is as big as ever, but there were also various submissions detailing XML database use across many fields.</li><li>Processing <strong>performance and efficiency</strong></li><li><strong>RDF stores</strong>: particularly focusing on performance and scalability. To see so many submissions on this topic was quite a surprise.<br /></li><li><strong>New APIs and ways of processing</strong>: innovation is anything but over at the core of XML processing</li></ul><p>Of course, just because these are the major themes, it doesn't mean they'll squeeze out equally great presentations on other topics.</p><p>I'll post more observations as I continue to review the proposals.&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/01/16-trends#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> XTech call for participation closes today http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/01/09-xtech Amsterdam. May. XTech. Proposals. Due. Today. xtech Edd Dumbill 2006-01-09T13:00:00Z <div> <p>A last-minute reminder to get your <a href="http://xtech.org/">XTech</a> proposals in today. All the proposals I've seen so far are deeply wonderful: reviewing and choosing is going to be very, very difficult!</p> <p><a href="http://xtech.org/2006/call.asp">Submit proposals here.</a></p> </div> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/01/09-xtech#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Are web services and e-business interesting? http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/01/01-webservices Why e-business and web services have a low profile in the XTech Call for Participation. xtech Edd Dumbill 2006-01-05T19:32:43Z <div> <p>A couple of people have commented to me on the lack of explicit reference to web services or e-business technologies in the <a href="http://xtech.org/2006/call.asp">XTech call for participation</a>. It's worth explaining why this is so.</p> <p>On web services: I consider the low-level specs here (SOAP, REST, WSDL) now to fall under "core technologies" track, and the higher level stuff (WS-*) to be often vacuous spec-mongering.</p> <p>Also, over the years, the quality of web service proposals submitted to the conference has been notably poor compared to all the other topics. A lot of this was to do with the hype web services received. On e-business, some useful submissions have been forthcoming, but never more than a few. My suspicion is that the OASIS stream of events is more interesting for most people in this space--I'd love to hear otherwise.</p> <p>I do view e-business presentations as on-topic, but I would like to find those that genuinely present something worthwhile. While many people often say they'd like to see more case studies, turnout for these is always low at the conference itself, so I've shied away from them somewhat. The thing with case studies is that they're necessarily related to a domain, and it's easy to for attendees to assume there's not transferable experience to be heard.</p> <p>I guess I don't believe either that all the problems in the e-business space are unique to that area. Identity, federated service location, transactions are all topics that deserve a broad audience. However, I acknowledge that I do not work daily in the e-business sphere and I would dearly love to hear somebody who does do a presentation on why there's really some solid things going on there now.</p> <p>Exchange of best practices is more necessary than ever. More reason not to hive off e-business from the other matters in the conference. For a similar reason I've mixed semantic web topics throughout the tracks as well.</p> <p>If anyone working in e-business didn't get useful knowledge out of XTech, I'd be astounded. Likewise, those working in e-business have plenty useful to say to the rest of the conference.</p> <ul> <li>only 4 days left to submit a proposal for XTech 2006 (Amsterdam, May 16-19) -- <a href="http://xtech.org/2006/call.asp">do it now</a></li> </ul> </div> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2006/01/01-webservices#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Paul Graham, XTech and holidays http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/12/23-xtech News on XTech keynotes and other things xtech Edd Dumbill 2005-12-23T10:26:32Z <div> <p>Just a quick pre-holiday update on the state of <a href="http://xtech.org/">XTech 2006</a>.</p> <p>We've had, as usual, some amazing paper submissions so far, so please keep them <a href="http://xtech.org/2006/call.asp">coming</a>. Don't forget, too, that we're also asking for <a href="http://xtech.org/2006/tutorials.asp">tutorial</a> submissions. These should be half-day or full-day and, as well as the free conference registration all speakers get, we pay an honorarium to tutors. Deadline is 9 January at the latest.</p> <p>One very exciting bit of news I have is that <a href="http://paulgraham.com/">Paul Graham</a> has agreed to deliver one of the keynote sessions at XTech. I'm very pleased about this, and it follows in the tradition we've established of having interesting and challenging speakers, rather than putting plenary sessions up for sale to sponsors. </p> <p>Amsterdam. 16-19 May 2006. What could be better?</p> <p>As for the holidays, I hope to be spending some time catching up on my open source work, and also carrying on my work with Rails. A busy couple of months at work, combined with no fewer than two bad server hardware issues, has eroded free time considerably. So to anyone waiting on me for something, I do apologise.</p> <p>One final pointer: IBM developerWorks have published the first part of my examination of the future of HTML, <a href="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-futhtml1/">focusing on WHATWG</a>. Look out very soon for the second part, looking at the various activities underway at the W3C. I know that my editor at least awaits this eagerly!</p> <p>Thanks to everyone who's read this blog during the year, and for the many interesting and helpful conversations that have come from it. Happy Christmas!</p> </div> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/12/23-xtech#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> XTech topic musings http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/12/15-xtech-ideas Some ideas for XTech 2006 proposals I'd like to see. xtech Edd Dumbill 2005-12-15T19:57:49Z <div> <p>Compiled over the last few weeks, here's a random list of some subjects I'd love to see covered in <a href="http://xtech.org/">XTech</a> 2006. There's now only three weeks left of the <a href="http://xtech.org/2006/call.asp">call for participation</a> -- so it's definitely time get that proposal in! <a href="mailto:edd-web@usefulinc.com">Mail me</a> if you have any questions.</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office">OpenDocument</a> vs. <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/developers/fileoverview.mspx">Microsoft Office Open XML</a> (am I the only one annoyed by how this format is abbreviated as "Open XML"?)</li> <li><a href="http://www.rubyonrails.org/">Ruby on Rails 1.0</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.getfirefox.com/">Firefox 1.5</a>, including its many new <a href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Firefox_1.5_Beta_for_Developers">features for developers</a>. I loved the idea from Tristan Nitot that <a href="http://standblog.org/blog/2005/12/13/93114546-extensions-as-a-way-to-keep-firefox-successful">extensions are a way to keep Firefox successful</a>. There's a lot of potential here. Anybody want to attend a tutorial on making Firefox extensions?</li> <li>W3C <a href="http://www.w3.org/2006/rwc/Activity.html">Rich Web Clients Activity</a></li> <li>XSLT 2.0 adoption and implementation--anyone but Saxon?</li> <li><a href="http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2005/Nov-27-1.html">The Web Desktop</a>. 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.</li> <li>Design, usability and patterns for AJAX web applications.</li> <li><a href="http://www.opencontentalliance.org/">Open Content Alliance</a></li> <li>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.</li> <li>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.</li> </ul> <p>Submit your proposal here: <a href="http://xtech.org/2006/call.asp">XTech 2006 Call for Participation</a>. XTech will be held 16-19 May 2006, Amsterdam, Netherlands.</p> </div> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/12/15-xtech-ideas#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> The Web as it was meant to be used http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/11/19-web20 Paul Graham's essay on Web 2.0 explains why I chose the tagline "Building Web 2.0" for XTech 2006. xtech Edd Dumbill 2005-11-19T23:57:38Z <div> <p>Since giving <a href="http://xtech.org/">XTech 2006</a> 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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>Just as I embarked on distilling these thoughts into a fuller form, Paul Graham published an <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html">excellent essay on Web 2.0</a>. In it he analyses the Web 2.0 term:</p> <p><blockquote>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.</blockquote></p> <p>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.</p> <p>For me, that's a wonderful encapsulation of both current web trends and my aspirations for <a href="http://xtech.org/">XTech</a>. "Web 2.0" is a just a handy label for this.</p> <p>"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 <a href="http://www.xtech-conference.org/2006/call.asp">submitting an XTech proposal</a>.</p> </div> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/11/19-web20#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Opera, Google, W3C: Yes Please! http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/11/17-yes An exciting week for web technology with Opera Mobile Platform, Google Base and W3C's Rich Client Activity. xtech Edd Dumbill 2005-11-17T15:28:54Z <div> <p>I've been out of the loop for a few days, travelling, and suddenly everything is happening at once. I'm starting to get very excited about <a href="http://usefulinc.com/edd/blog/contents/2005/11/15-xtech/read">XTech 2006</a>, and then multiple new products and initiatives are announced that I'd just love to have people talk about at the conference. What are these?</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/platform/">Opera's Mobile Platform</a>, which uses AJAX and Opera as a substrate to make phones easy to develop on. I've tried several times to hack for phones, and it's way too hard. This platform could really unlock a surge in phone applications, and change the way we see or use a lot of web services.</li> <li><a href="http://base.google.com/">Google Base</a>. Talk about controversial. There's either nothing to see, or it's validation of our wildest dreams. I want to know about its potential, vision and workings.</li> <li><a href="http://www.w3.org/News/2005#item162">W3C's Rich Client Activity</a>. In short--standardisation for the key components of AJAX technology and a way forward for creating XML languages to support web applications. Very much a continuation of the themes that got <a href="http://www.whatwg.org/">WHATWG</a> going. I've been having much warmer feelings towards the W3C recently, and this activity is great to see.</li> </ul> <p>If you made these things, or know a lot about them, please consider <a href="http://www.xtech-conference.org/2006/call.asp">submitting a proposal</a> for XTech 2006!</p> </div> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/11/17-yes#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Building Web 2.0 at XTech 2006 http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/11/15-xtech The call for participation is now out for XTech 2006. Get involved! xtech Edd Dumbill 2005-11-15T21:41:38Z <div> <p>I'm very excited to announce the <a href="http://www.xtech-conference.org/2006/call.asp">Call for Participation</a> for <a href="http://www.xtech.org/">XTech 2006</a>. Submissions are due by 9th January. The conference itself is 16th-19th May 2006, in Amsterdam, Netherlands.</p> <p>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 <a href="http://xtech.org/2006/tracks.asp">four tracks</a> --</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.xtech.org/2006/tracks.asp">Applications</a> -- "mashups", frameworks, publishing, open source solutions, aggregation</li> <li><a href="http://www.xtech.org/2006/tracks.asp#browser">Browser Technology</a> -- browsers, AJAX, design and interaction for Web 2.0</li> <li><a href="http://www.xtech.org/2006/tracks.asp#coretech">Core Technologies</a> -- the XML and RDF family, RSS/Atom, databases, nuts-and-bolts tech</li> <li><a href="http://www.xtech.org/2006/tracks.asp#opendata">Open Data</a> -- information design, identity, tagging, privacy, trust, Creative Commons, DRM, government</li> </ul> <p>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 <a href="http://www.xtech-conference.org/2006/call.asp">full call</a> and submit your abstract. Also, do read the full <a href="http://www.xtech.org/2006/tracks.asp">track descriptions</a> -- they go into more detail than I can here. Tutorials will be held on the 16th, and the presentation tracks from 17th-19th.</p> <p>In 2006 I want to build on the success of <a href="http://www.xtech-conference.org/2005/schedule.asp">last year</a> 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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>Feel free to <a href="mailto:edd-web@usefulinc.com">drop me a note</a> with any questions or suggestions about XTech 2006. (If you want to propose a session, please use the online <a href="http://www.idealliance.org/xtech/06/call">submission form</a> rather than sending email.)</p> </div> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/11/15-xtech#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Save the date: XTech 2006 http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/08/18-xtech2006 Announcing the date for next year's XTech conference. xtech Edd Dumbill 2005-08-18T13:10:49Z <div> <p>Following on from the great conference we had this year at <a href="http://xtech.org/">XTech</a>, I'm pleased to be able to announce the date and programme committee for next year's XTech.</p> <p>XTech 2006 will be held from <strong>16-19 May, 2006</strong>, in <strong>Amsterdam</strong>. This year we'll be in the centre of Amsterdam, based in the <a href="http://www.hotel-bookings.nl/krasnapolsky.html">Krasnapolsky Hotel</a> on Dam Square.</p> <p>The conference will continue with the same themes from last year: browser technology, open data, XML and applications. This year's programme committee reflects that diversity, and I'm really excited about working with them.</p> <ul> <li>Dan Brickley, W3C</li> <li>Eric van der Vlist, Dyomedea</li> <li>Marion Elledge, IDEAlliance</li> <li>Matt Biddulph, BBC</li> <li>Mike Shaver, Mozilla Foundation</li> <li>Mike Linksvayer, Creative Commons</li> </ul> <p>We're working on the call for participation, which should be released soon. Mark the date in your diary now!</p> </div> <p><a href="http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/08/18-xtech2006#disqus_thread">Join the conversation about this post</a></p> Back from XTech http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/05/30-xtech-over Thanks to everyone who helped make XTech such an excellent conference. xtech Edd Dumbill 2005-05-30T16:45:56Z <div> <p>What a week. From my immodest point of view, <a href=