5 ms·

Those footnotes have a mix of prescience and just plain wrong. For instance, there's one about how a good open source browser can fundamentally change the indus

by lambda 16y ago

Those footnotes have a mix of prescience and just plain wrong. For instance, there's one about how a good open source browser can fundamentally change the industry; and Firefox has in that time gained much ground and helped spur innovation in IE and across the web (as have WebKit and Chrome). However, Firefox was already underway by the time he wrote this, so that prediction isn't necessarily so forward looking. His opposition to client-side software, though, is less prescient. He says that JavaScript may not be available when you can browse the web on your phone; but JavaScript support is now one of the distinguishing features of new smartphones. He says that writing client-side apps is a bad idea, but the popularity of client-side JavaScript is proving that wrong. Mostly, Java applets themselves were a bad technology, but client side code that integrates with the Web is a popular idea, in the form of Flash and JavaScript. So yeah, there's one prescient quote in there, but some more that are wrong. And many people were hoping for an Apple iPod/phone for quite a while; see, for example, http://technologizer.com/2009/12/28/iphone-rumors/ http://technologizer.com/2009/12/28/iphone-rumors/ (the first list of collected iPhone rumors I found in a google search).

colinprince 16y ago
And WebKit has certainly rejuvenated the mobile web industry.
jseliger 16y ago
And many people were hoping for an Apple iPod/phone for quite a while; see, for example, http://technologizer.com/2009/12/28/iphone-rumors/ http://technologizer.com/2009/12/28/iphone-rumors/ (the first list of collected iPhone rumors I found in a google search). This was published in 2009. Hackers and Painters came in 2004.
- lambda 16y ago
  Er, that was a collection of rumors about an Apple phone from before the iPhone was released. Yes, it was collected after the release of the iPhone, but it's reporting on rumors and speculation from before the iPhone, including one from 2002: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/19/technology/19APPL.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/19/technology/19APPL.html?pag... "And now come signs that Mr. Jobs means to take Apple back to the land of the handhelds, but this time with a device that would combine elements of a cellphone and a Palm -like personal digital assistant."
gruseom 16y ago
Hold on a second. He says that writing client-side apps is a bad idea, but the popularity of client-side JavaScript is proving that wrong What's the original quote? I bet that in "client-side apps is a bad idea", he was talking about desktop apps as opposed to web apps. Client-side JS is very much a web app thing, so far from refuting the prediction, it confirms it. And indeed the prediction turned out correct, if not so prescient as to be newsworthy years later. Assuming I'm guessing correctly, that brings us to 3 correct predictions vs. 1 incorrect one, quite a bit better a record than you're implying. Edit: Also, since you allude to "some more that were wrong": care to say what they were?
- lambda 16y ago
  "In 1995, when we started Viaweb, Java applets were supposed to be the technology everyone was going to use to develop server-base applications. Applets seemed to us an old-fashioned idea. Download programs to run on the client? Simpler just to go all the way and run the programs on the server. We wasted little time on applets, but countless other startups must have been lured into this tar pit. Few seem to have escaped alive." p. 227, from scrolling around a bit from the Google Books links in the original post: http://books.google.com/books?id=B4dk0tYPrckC&pg=PA228&lpg=PA228&dq=ipod+cell http://books.google.com/books?id=B4dk0tYPrckC&pg=PA228&#... Also, pp. 228-229: "I would not even use Javascript, if I were you; Viaweb didn't. Most of the Javascript I see on the Web isn't necessary, and much of it breaks. And when you start to be able to browse actual web pages on your cell phone or PDA (or toaster), who knows if they'll even support it." Note that this is just from reading a few of the footnotes from that link; I haven't read the rest of the book, so I can't speak much on it. All I'm saying is that he got some things right, some wrong, and that other people were talking about an iPhone before he did. And I should have said "a few prescient quotes, and a few that are wrong." The "one prescient quote" that I wrote was a mistake on my part, as I had just discussed two prescient quotes (iPhone and open-source browser innovation); not sure why I wrote "one."
  - philh 16y ago
    >I would not even use Javascript, if I were you; Viaweb didn't. Most of the Javascript I see on the Web isn't necessary, and much of it breaks. And when you start to be able to browse actual web pages on your cell phone or PDA (or toaster), who knows if they'll even support it. I read this as being advice for the then-present, not a prediction. "Javascript isn't necessary, doesn't work well, and it's not guaranteed that it will work in future."

by lambda 16y ago

colinprince 16y ago

And WebKit has certainly rejuvenated the mobile web industry.

jseliger 16y ago

And many people were hoping for an Apple iPod/phone for quite a while; see, for example, http://technologizer.com/2009/12/28/iphone-rumors/ http://technologizer.com/2009/12/28/iphone-rumors/ (the first list of collected iPhone rumors I found in a google search). This was published in 2009. Hackers and Painters came in 2004.

lambda 16y ago
Er, that was a collection of rumors about an Apple phone from before the iPhone was released. Yes, it was collected after the release of the iPhone, but it's reporting on rumors and speculation from before the iPhone, including one from 2002: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/19/technology/19APPL.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/19/technology/19APPL.html?pag... "And now come signs that Mr. Jobs means to take Apple back to the land of the handhelds, but this time with a device that would combine elements of a cellphone and a Palm -like personal digital assistant."

gruseom 16y ago

Hold on a second. He says that writing client-side apps is a bad idea, but the popularity of client-side JavaScript is proving that wrong What's the original quote? I bet that in "client-side apps is a bad idea", he was talking about desktop apps as opposed to web apps. Client-side JS is very much a web app thing, so far from refuting the prediction, it confirms it. And indeed the prediction turned out correct, if not so prescient as to be newsworthy years later. Assuming I'm guessing correctly, that brings us to 3 correct predictions vs. 1 incorrect one, quite a bit better a record than you're implying. Edit: Also, since you allude to "some more that were wrong": care to say what they were?

lambda 16y ago
"In 1995, when we started Viaweb, Java applets were supposed to be the technology everyone was going to use to develop server-base applications. Applets seemed to us an old-fashioned idea. Download programs to run on the client? Simpler just to go all the way and run the programs on the server. We wasted little time on applets, but countless other startups must have been lured into this tar pit. Few seem to have escaped alive." p. 227, from scrolling around a bit from the Google Books links in the original post: http://books.google.com/books?id=B4dk0tYPrckC&pg=PA228&lpg=PA228&dq=ipod+cell http://books.google.com/books?id=B4dk0tYPrckC&pg=PA228&#... Also, pp. 228-229: "I would not even use Javascript, if I were you; Viaweb didn't. Most of the Javascript I see on the Web isn't necessary, and much of it breaks. And when you start to be able to browse actual web pages on your cell phone or PDA (or toaster), who knows if they'll even support it." Note that this is just from reading a few of the footnotes from that link; I haven't read the rest of the book, so I can't speak much on it. All I'm saying is that he got some things right, some wrong, and that other people were talking about an iPhone before he did. And I should have said "a few prescient quotes, and a few that are wrong." The "one prescient quote" that I wrote was a mistake on my part, as I had just discussed two prescient quotes (iPhone and open-source browser innovation); not sure why I wrote "one."
- philh 16y ago
  >I would not even use Javascript, if I were you; Viaweb didn't. Most of the Javascript I see on the Web isn't necessary, and much of it breaks. And when you start to be able to browse actual web pages on your cell phone or PDA (or toaster), who knows if they'll even support it. I read this as being advice for the then-present, not a prediction. "Javascript isn't necessary, doesn't work well, and it's not guaranteed that it will work in future."