Rants

What is a blog? Not what Scoble thinks!

Jason Olson — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 02:52:00 GMT

You know, I don't know Robert Scoble that well, so I wasn't really wanting to chime in to respond to this post he recently made. In fact, the closest I've ever been to Scoble is that I'm now working in his old office, that's it. But after reading Jeff Sandquist's response, I have to chime in and disagree with Scoble as well.

I won't pretend to know whether Scoble's ego is out of control or not*, but Scoble, you are just wrong. I vehemently disagree with the sentiment that a blog has to be public to be a "blog". My wife blogs, is it public? No. Why? Because it deals with issues like fertility problems and other struggles. Even though it is not "public", it is available to be linked _within a smaller community_.

You can't find any posts from Google, MSN Search, or any other external search engine. However, all her posts are discoverable by other members of the community that are facing similar issues. She is getting a lot of the benefits from public blogging while being able to limit her audience to a support group that would be able to understand and sympathize with her. I fully support her doing so, and encourage her to continue. Would I call it a blog? ABSOLUTELY. Within her community, they all gain the benefits of blogs and accomplish all five "things" that Scoble discusses (via the use of internal tools). After blogging for almost three years, I like to think at least that I perhaps "get it" more than the average Joe.

In the comments on Jeff's post, Scoble makes the following statements:

You just gave them their own name "internal blogs." Over on my blog you called them "private blogs."
Go see a trademark lawyer. You know that "Vista" is not the same thing as "Windows Vista."

Scoble, once again, you are just wrong. I don't believe this is the same thing as comparing "Vista" and "Windows Vista." Comparing "private blogs" to "public blogs" is more like comparing "wool sweater" and "polyester sweater": they are BOTH sweaters!!! They simply use a different "medium".

In my opinion, it is pretty short-sighted to say that "private blogs" or not "blogs." Think of the use of blogging within support groups: like for people suffering from HIV/AIDS, recovering Alcoholics, etc. They can have a way to communicate "publicly" within their own support group yet still remain "private" to the outside world. In a way, it is almost like comparing the "private", "protected" and "public" keywords in a programming language. Alas, I won't go down that road of comparison though :).

So please Robert, step back and look at the bigger picture. By taking the perspective you are, you are only hurting the topic that you say you are an "expert" at. If you really love blogging as much as you do, please open your eyes to the different ways blogging can be used to help make this a better world, not just the ways that "you want" to use them. Remember, you != everyone.

*although statements like "Blogging is something I'm a weeeee bit of an expert on" in this response post certainly make it seem that way. With how relatively young blogging is compared to other forms of communication, I don't believe that any single person can be considered an "expert" at it.

[Crossposted from Managed World]

.NET Framework Three-Point-Oh?

Jason Olson — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 19:46:00 GMT

I'm going to warn all of you out there now: I'm about to break down the walls and get honest about some of my feelings. If all you want to hear about are unicorns, pretty pink bunnies, and how cuddly-wuddly the whole world is, I encourage you to leave now. No group hugs here. No kumbaiya here. No other camp songs either, for that matter. With that said, let's now move on to the real "schtuff", shall we?

I would like to talk a little bit about the decision to rename WinFX to .NET Framework 3.0. Do I agree with the re-branding of WinFX to .NET Framework? Absolutely. I believe it does communicate the fact that the various WinFX technologies are a _part_ of the Framework now and it will lead to less confusion in the long run. It is now clear that the various WinFX technologies are part of the core platform and, in my mind, that is "A Good Thing."

So, if I am behind the re-branding, what is my problem? Well, my problem is three simple syllables: "three point oh". I can see more confusion being caused by using the 3.0 label for this "version" of the framework in the long run. What does .NET Framework 3.0 have to do with C# 3.0 or the 3.0 runtime? Nothing. What version of the runtime is packaged with .NET Framework 3.0? 2.0. Are there any breaking changes between .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0? Nope. Why? Because the .NET Framework 3.0 uses the 2.0 runtime. Huh? You mean there's no breaking changes even with the major rev of the Framework? No, because they are the same runtime under the hood.

For me, it is slightly reminiscent of the naming mess Sun is in with Java. After all, you have J2EE (Java2) 5.0 (which actually uses version 1.5 of the Java language). It's disappointing as Microsoft had done relatively with with 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0. So, what are the other options?

One option is .NET Framework 2.1. To me, this option is only slightly better than 3.0. True, people won't think of breaking changes taking place. However, this still suffers from the fact that the Framework version is different than the runtime version (and hence, leading to some of the same confusion). Cross this off the list.

Another option is .NET Framework 2.0, Service Pack 1. With this option, the framework version is the same as the runtime version, so that confusion is alleviated. With a "Service Pack", it is not clear that there are a bunch of new features with it though. At least, not by definition it's not. However, isn't this what Microsoft basically did Windows XP, Service Pack 2? I still think there would problems convincing marketing to go with this title as I think it would be more difficult to "sell" this to customers. I'm not in marketing though, so I could be way off on this one :). This is probably the one that I like out of the other options (including ones that other people have posted about).

So what will I personally do about this? I guess I'll just sit back and accept it (with a frown). Overall, I believe it is perhaps the lesser of all evils once the decision was made to integrate it into the .NET Framework "product". At times like this, there is one word that comes to mind: Unfortunate!

Disclaimer: as usual, this is just one man's opinion and yours might differ.

[Crosspost from Managed World]