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Interview: Tim Bray on the Future of the Web

Posted by Dionysios G. Synodinos on Mar 23, 2009

Sections
Enterprise Architecture,
Operations & Infrastructure,
Process & Practices,
Architecture & Design,
Development
Topics
Java ,
WOA ,
Web Services ,
Cloud Computing ,
.NET ,
SOA Platforms ,
Web Frameworks ,
Platforms ,
REST ,
Virtualization ,
Ruby ,
Rich Internet Apps ,
WS Standards ,
SOA Appliance ,
Agile Techniques ,
SOA ,
Agile ,
Web 2.0
Tags
EC2 ,
Rails ,
AtomPub ,
Trends ,
Azure ,
Django

In this interview made during QCon SF 2008, Tim Bray talks about why he is not convinced with the buzz surrounding Rich Internet Applications and shares his ideas on Cloud Computing. He also expresses his opinion regarding the debate REST vs. WS-* and the future directions web technologies will be taking.

Watch: Tim Bray on the Future of the Web (32 min.)

Tim Bray also addresses the way web technologies are affected by the current economic turmoil and gives his insight into which paradigms he sees going forward in these challenging times.

Dionysios G. Synodinos is a Web Engineer and a freelance consultant, focusing on Web technologies

15 comments

Watch Thread Reply

great interview by Gregory Bond Posted
Re: great interview by Jeff Niles Posted
Re: great interview by Benjamin Booth Posted
Re: great interview by Ivan Lazarte Posted
Re: great interview by Stefan Tilkov Posted
Re: great interview by Kevin Brown Posted
Re: great interview by Ivan Lazarte Posted
What's your problem? by Hermann Schmidt Posted
Re: great interview by Twice Tshwenyane Posted
And this is the problem with "Enterprise" developers by Kevin Brown Posted
Video stops after the by marc _ Posted
Re: Video stops after the by Diana Plesa Posted
The counter arguement... by Jon Rose Posted
Re: The counter arguement... by Jean-Jacques Dubray Posted
Re: The counter arguement... by Nolan Evans Posted
  1. Back to top

    great interview

    by Gregory Bond

    i enjoyed the discussion - thanks

  2. Back to top

    Video stops after the

    by marc _

    Hi,
    the video stops after or during the answer to the second question.
    Regards
    Marc

  3. Back to top

    Re: Video stops after the

    by Diana Plesa

    Hi Marc,

    I just tested the video and everything seems to be working just fine.

    Diana (InfoQ)

  4. Back to top

    Re: great interview

    by Jeff Niles

    I love the irony of this interview. Tim Bray is talking about web usability and the interview is posted to one of the most unusable, poorly designed websites I have ever seen in my life. Do you guys have any idea what you are doing?

    Take this quote from the interview: "Oh it was so great when the vendors all brought in the web interfaces because it forced them to get rid of all these weird cascading menus and options that nobody ever used, [...] I think a dollar with that kind of richness is worth a thousand dollars of things that wiggle when you put the mouse over them."

    And how is the interview presented in this javascript-abusing, godawful website? I have to read through a key hole and click on worthless little widgets. This is extremely counter-productive and annoying.

    You guys need to take a lesson from Tim and lay out your website in some reasonable way.

  5. Back to top

    Re: great interview

    by Benjamin Booth

    ... the interview is posted to one of the most unusable, poorly designed websites I have ever seen in my life. Do you guys have any idea what you are doing?

    ...

    And how is the interview presented in this javascript-abusing, godawful website? I have to read through a key hole and click on worthless little widgets. This is extremely counter-productive and annoying.

    You guys need to take a lesson from Tim and lay out your website in some reasonable way.


    I cannot disagree more, Jeff. Oh, and by the way, the Tim's interview was fantastic.

    I've been using InfoQ for several years and love the cleanliness and usability of the site. In fact, I'd venture to say that it's a model for information-rich, mixed media presentation and interaction. Their combination of video and textual presentation of interviews is fantastic. Click on text you want to hear again and the video resets to that point.

    Jeff, I challenge you to post a single link to a website you had any part in developing that rivals InfoQ.

  6. Back to top

    Re: great interview

    by Ivan Lazarte

    I agree that infoqs video content is reasonably well-presented. It really begs for some transcripts though.

  7. Back to top

    Re: great interview

    by Twice Tshwenyane

    ... the interview is posted to one of the most unusable, poorly designed websites I have ever seen in my life. Do you guys have any idea what you are doing?

    ...

    And how is the interview presented in this javascript-abusing, godawful website? I have to read through a key hole and click on worthless little widgets. This is extremely counter-productive and annoying.

    You guys need to take a lesson from Tim and lay out your website in some reasonable way.


    I cannot disagree more, Jeff. Oh, and by the way, the Tim's interview was fantastic.

    I've been using InfoQ for several years and love the cleanliness and usability of the site. In fact, I'd venture to say that it's a model for information-rich, mixed media presentation and interaction. Their combination of video and textual presentation of interviews is fantastic. Click on text you want to hear again and the video resets to that point.

    Jeff, I challenge you to post a single link to a website you had any part in developing that rivals InfoQ.

    +1

  8. Back to top

    Re: great interview

    by Stefan Tilkov

    I agree that infoqs video content is reasonably well-presented. It really begs for some transcripts though.

    But … there is a transcript?!

  9. Back to top

    And this is the problem with "Enterprise" developers

    by Kevin Brown

    People who live completely in the "Enterprise" world seem to forget what usability means, and care only that you have as much info crammed into one space as possible. Whether we are talking about some horribly over engineered software bus(ESB) or a web page that has a dozen boxes of content strewn about the screen resulting in a cluttered mess (As is the case here).

    And don't give me the "Show me your great website then" crap. Look at many other professional sites (Google search, Cisco's page, Lockheed, or about 90% of other big businesses), you'll notice they are clean and simple with actual room for whitespace, and clearly defined navigation areas, with most of the area devoted to content. There are obvious offenders though like Yahoo, and to a lesser extent Amazon.

    Also anyone who thinks it's a great idea to put the actual content users are trying to read in little 2 inch boxes is deluding themselves. Although I doubt sane comments will be worthwhile to anyone defending the usability of this site, since they all seem to have classical confirmation bias working against reality.

  10. Back to top

    Re: great interview

    by Kevin Brown

    I agree that infoqs video content is reasonably well-presented. It really begs for some transcripts though.

    But … there is a transcript?!


    Ha ha, incredibly clean and usable site. Except that not even people who prefer a 'rich' layout can find anything on it :-D

  11. Back to top

    Re: great interview

    by Ivan Lazarte

    oh wow, I take it all back, hah! yeah that plus button really needs to be a different color or something. (:embarassed face:)

  12. Back to top

    The counter arguement...

    by Jon Rose

    Yakov Fain has a detailed response to Tim's comments: flexblog.faratasystems.com/?p=404

  13. Back to top

    What's your problem?

    by Hermann Schmidt

    Gee, I don't get what your problem is with InfoQ. If you have orientation problems with this simple and clean layout, you are in real trouble. Don't participate in traffic with any vehicle, that's all I can say!

    Apparently, you actually seem to enjoy posting. How on earth did you figure this one out... :-D

  14. Back to top

    Re: The counter arguement...

    by Jean-Jacques Dubray

    I couldn't agree more with Yakov, people that negate the advances of RIA are simply looking in their rear view mirror. Note that most of the REST community is actually on board with that as no one talks about using HATEOAS, which according to Roy is the core of REST, and everyone promoting the use HTTP in an RPC mode (a.k.a lo-REST).

  15. Back to top

    Re: The counter arguement...

    by Nolan Evans

    I think Yakov is mistaken and here is why: nolanevans.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-dont-think-th...

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