When
· Naughties
· · 2005
· · · September
· · · · 21 (2 entries)

Protocol Day One · It was a mildly historic day; a few of us got together on IRC and tried to interoperate some early Atom Publishing Protocol implementations. The only server on the air was from Dave Johnson. We got two different clients to talk to it; one was a Big Secret Project from a Big Famous Company based on all sorts of slick infrastructure. Mine was curl. I managed to introspect the server, list the entries, create a new entry, update it, and delete it. I screwed up the messaging a few times, and Dave’s server only blew chunks about half of them. Those who know what curl is are probably snickering now. But I think the fact that you can debug a nontrivial application with curl -X -i -d -H is a significant weapon in the quiver of RESTafarians. Let’s see ya do that with your SOAP + WSDL + WS-Policy + WS-Addressing + WS-MetadataExchange + WS-ReliableMessaging app. Actually, the big take-away isn’t that, it’s that the Atom protocol is simple and easy to implement and robust. The world needs something like this. Later: Hey, more Atom Protocol stuff from Joe Gregorio over at XML.com.
 
Have Mercy on Me · It was peer-group pressure that did it. For my sins, I am now the coach of Douglas Park Soccer Under-7 team #3, now known as... hold on, we’ll get there. The need was desperate but I was up-front, said I’m there most Saturdays but mid-week might find me in Slovenia or Tokyo, so they found me a co-coach and now I’m stuck. In my personal memory, coaches are large personages with booming voices and a general air of heartiness, which I shall endeavor to emulate; a whistle and clipboard are on my shopping list. So, during the season-opening ceremonies I convened the team, whom my mathematically-literate readership will have deduced are all six, to choose a name. They were seriously into it, and given the choice between addressing several thousand from a keynote stage or eight eager six-year-olds, it’s not even close. I asked them if they wanted a funny name (Turnips, Potatoes, Carrots), a fierce name (Lions, Tigers, Dragons), or a Vancouver name (Grizzlies, Orcas, Eagles). It’s a mixed league but our team is all-boy, so they they didn’t hesitate, they wanted a fierce name. One skinny little guy, all shorts and shoulderblades, looked at me sincerely and said “How about ‘Stormtroopers’?”, and I was gobsmacked for a moment till I realized this is the video generation and he meant Imperial stormtroopers not Sturmabteilung. “Uh, no.” I said, and then The Dragons carried the day. No, I don’t know what I’m getting into.
 
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