bugfox blog

For those who were wondering whether the new Congress might be just a little bit friendlier to open-source software, small developers, independent creative types and consumers in general, Lawrence Lessig thinks he has found the answer: Dems to the Net: Go to hell.

To the horror of many developers Google is abandoning its SOAP Search API.

Dave Megginson comments. Is this the beginning of the end for mashups and all the “Web 2.0″ excitement? Or just the end of SOAP? (Steve Loughran).

via Pete Lacey.

UPDATE: More thoughts from O’Reilly Radar.

A while ago Ron Garret wrote a widely-read article called Top ten geek business myths. Personally I’m not planning to start a business, but the article contains a throw-away remark that offers a plausible answer to a question that I find interesting: Why don’t businesses use LISP?

Ironically, C programmers understand this much better than Lisp programmers. One of the ironies of the programming world is that using Lisp is vastly more productive than using pretty much any other programming language, but successful businesses based on Lisp are quite rare. The reason for this, I think, is that Lisp allows you to be so productive that a single person can get things done without having to work together with anyone else, and so Lisp programmers never develop the social skills needed to work effectively as a member of a team. A C programmer, by contrast, can’t do anything useful except as a member of a team. So although programming in C hobbles you in some ways, it forces you to form groups whose net effectiveness is greater than the sum of their parts, and who collectively can stomp on all the individual Lisp programmers out there, even though one-on-one a Lisper can run rings around a C programmer.

(via Elliotte Rusty Harolde.)

Oren Eini asks why .NET has fewer successful open source projects than Java in The Problem of Open Source in the Microsoft World.

Presumably for the benefit of those who find the RFC hard to follow, Mark Pilgrim translates the HTTP response codes into toddler-speak: REST for toddlers.

The REST vs WS wars continue. Pete Lacey has an insightful post on RESTful Security, and a further clarification: Clarity Around Security.