[extropy-chat] Some ideas... dumped

[Emlyn]

Hi all,

I've been coming up with way too many interesting ideas lately. I can
never begin to follow up even 10% of this stuff, so usually they go to
waste. Then I discovered blogging...

http://virtualemlyn.blogspot.com/

I've got a couple of cool fresh ideas on my blog right now, maybe
they'd interest someone.

One is a concept of web-based identity management for people out in
the world, to handle all the myriad email addresses, web site logins,
files, calendars & schedules, contact lists, etc, etc, etc that we all
accumulate but that get completely out of hand (because there's just
so much heterogenous crap to remember, like usernames/password, or
urls, or whatever).

Another is an explanation of how I think the google units based
calculator probably works (ie: how to build it, and it's easy), and
some bonus stuff you can do over and above that, given that you aren't
integrating with a search engine.

I'll expound shortly on a half baked software development methodology
that I've got brewing in my head, tentatively tagged "disposable
code". The axioms are "assume you start with a few spectacular coders,
genius hackers, who can kind of work together, are individually
irreplaceable, and most of whom don't like working with each other.
What can you do?". It's a reaction to the regular methodologies
(standard big system & agile) which assume that you want to work with
endless fields of stupified code grinders, and that the brilliant
cowboys in the corner are a liability...

I think it will combines with an idea I blogged in July called "Object
Bus" (dumb name), which is that you create a layer above messaging and
databases onto which you can put objects, from which you can retrieve
objects, including message sending style behaviour and database style
behaviour. The "space" of objects is above the machine level (many
machines can be involved, transparently). This way you can write lots
of little programs that just do a bit of something, interacting only
with the "object bus" and not with each other directly. From what
little I know of Java, this is a bit like Java spaces, but the
difference is that it is non language specific, meant to be dead easy
to use, and applicable to desktop apps as well as big enterprise
craziness. I wonder if a P2P approach under the covers could work
here? This goes on and on, see the July archive in my blog for more
detail.

Feel free to tell me if you find any of this in the slightest bit
useful or entertaining. Um, yeah, and also you can tell me it sucks if
you feel so inclined.

-- 
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *