Widgets Live

Because I know it'll happen, here's the answers to what I'm sure I'll be asked about the Widgets Live conference on November 6^th:

• Q: How many women are speaking at the conference?

  A: I see one on the current schedule, Sanaz Ahari. She knows her stuff and she's well qualified.

• Q: Will you be there?

  A: Sorry, but no.

• Q: Why not?

  A: While y'all are learning about widgets, I'll be in Tasmania. Yes, really.

• Q: If you were in the same hemisphere, would you be there?

  A: Based on the schedule, it appears they're still looking for someone to talk on "Building widgets using HTML and JavaScript." A chance to talk for thirty minutes on that topic? The problem would be getting me to stop.

  Or to actually answer the question: I'd be there if I was speaking; otherwise, it would probably be too darn frustrating.

Me, Live

One of the reasons I don't do a podcast is that I hate listening to my own voice. Video? Even less.

But don't let that stop you from watching Girl Geeks: Dori Smith, JavaScript Guru on the ScobleShow. Yes, the video interview I blogged about in this post is now live with 44:36 for your viewing pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity, Maryam!

Open Ajax - who cares?

Shelley wrote a post on OpenAjax, and I got a private ping from someone asking me for my take. You ask, you get.

She wrote:

From OpenAjax update:

With each member company having one vote, OpenAjax Alliance elected its inaugural 7-member Steering Committee: Dojo Foundation (SitePen), Eclipse Foundation, IBM, Nexaweb, Tibco, Zend and Zimbra. The individuals that represent these member companies on the Steering Committee are: Alex Ruseel (Dojo/SitePen), Mike Milinkovich, David Boloker(IBM), Coach Wei (Nexaweb), Kevin Hakman (Tibco), Mike Pinette (Zend) and Scott Dietzen (Zimbra).

In my opinion, this is a well balanced committee that would give OpenAjax Alliance the right leadership and guideline to make it successful.

No this isn't. You have no women, you have no expert on accessibility, you're too heavily weighted to Java, you have little representation outside of commercial interests, you have no representation from leaders in the fields related to the individual components of the technology, you mentioned confidentiality agreement in the first paragraph, which is counter to any movement that begins with "Open", I can't tell for sure, but it doesn't look like you have anyone from outside the States, and more importantly, you have no critics: people who provide the necessary ballast when the balloons get too high.

What's Ajaxian for 'echo chamber'?

Those are all good points, but mine differs a little: who gives a crap what any of those folks think? Outside of Alex Russell of Dojo, that is. The rest of them? Feh.

Show me a consortium that includes Apple, Mozilla, Yahoo, Microsoft, Opera, and the Web Standards Project, and I'll say you've got something cool. Hell, give me just four of them and I'll say it's cool (sorry, three isn't enough).

But here's the dirty secret of most of those Ajax "alliances": they're all about server-side companies trying to sound relevant. One of the whole points of Web 2.0 (and yes, I hate the term, but it's relevant here) is that the back-end is completely irrelevant to the end-user. And from the client-side programmer end, if my code needs XML, then I don't give a good goddamn whose XML it's looking at. But IBM and Sun (to name just two of the companies who have been trying hard to appear relevant) need to pretend that they have something to sell in a Web 2.0 world, and so, we see this kind of crap.

No browser companies represented? Only one JavaScript toolkit vendor represented? Bored now.