About All Things... |
Declarative,
Mobile 2.0,
REST,
Cloud,
Web 2.0,
Ajax,
Publish / Subscribe,
Event-Driven Architectures,
JSON,
Atom,
Microformats,
Linked Data,
P2P,
Identity,
Copyright,
Multimedia,
Cyberspace.
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...taking programming beyond: Threads, Message Queues, Client-Server, CORBA, Web Services, SOAs, Agents, Synchronous Architectures, Imperative Programming - and even Applications, Desktops and Documents |
Duncan Cragg... |
...works for ThoughtWorks UK; originally from April 2002 to July 2007 and now recently re-joined. Previously worked as a Web Architect for the Financial Times. |
...went to both UCL and Imperial College of the University of London (in the Eighties); specialising in Logic during his MSc. |
...wonders when his LinkedIn Account will be useful |
...has a phone-cam, and used it on himself once, just before his weekly shave:
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...can be contacted by
and followed on Twitter.
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February 10, 2015 15:58
These days I seem to mainly use this blog for once-a-year announcements of what I'm up to, which is useful as record for myself when I need to reflect.
So here's where I'm at, as 2015 begins..
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May 19, 2014 21:21
With the expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT), and the diversity of products and
technologies, the one thing that everyone agrees on is that it's time to start agreeing:
the Internet of Things needs standards. Many agree that it needs open standards, like
those that underpin the Web.
Obviously, a Web of Things is going to be quite different from the Web of Documents and
Applications: it'll be much more fine-grained and much more "buzzy", with many sensors
and actuators working together with many hubs and services. It's more likely to be at
home with the next generation of the Internet Protocol: IPv6.
To meet the fine-grained and buzzy nature of the IoT, the
Constrained Application Protocol, or CoAP,
was created. CoAP is an open Internet standard for the Web of Things. It's based
on the Web's core pipe: HTTP, but has many differences to allow it to be used by very
resource-constrained devices and local radio networks.
CoAP can be used in many different ways, but there's a danger that a lack of clarity in
exactly how it's used means it doesn't achieve its full potential to link up the world's
embedded devices.
This article proposes a simple and clear way that CoAP could be used to build a uniform,
global, decentralised Web of interacting and discoverable Things.
This article first appeared on the ThoughtWorks Insights pages.
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March 1, 2014 11:24
After filling up that other
blog recently with 61
pages of content, one page a day, I was challenged by my ThoughtWorks colleague,
Andy McWilliams, to help him get in more
easily to my explanations of the Object Network applied to Augmented Reality and the
Internet of Things, especially around how my approach differs and is better than other
approaches.
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January 27, 2014 11:36
I've started another blog called Building The Object Network, about how I'm experimenting with Augmented Reality for the Internet of Things using the Object Network approach.
So far I've been blogging every day.
Do subscribe!
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January 16, 2013 17:09
Well that worked out pretty well:
I have a 3D environment on Android programmed in a simple but powerful declarative
language which I've called "Cyrus".
Cyrus basically uses JSON all the way through: from user
interface and scene graph to rewrite rules, on the wire and on disk. The Cyrus
programming language is essentially JSON itself, as JSON rewrite rules. I've reduced the
noise of JSON in Cyrus by taking out redundant double-quotes, square brackets and
commas. It looks very nice to me.
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August 17, 2012 11:11
If you also think that hacking up 3D worlds on Android could be fun, then join me! Stuff you should expect to play with if you want to get involved includes Java, Android, OpenGL ES 2.0, 3D model creation, hyperlinked JSON and JSON rewrite rules. Creatives, evangelists and inspirers are also very welcome to get involved!
The idea is to make an app (NetMash) that lets people build, mash up, animate and program 3D worlds, shared online and all linked-up, Web-like.
Like creative-mode Minecraft, but adding easy in-world programming and shared online by default. Or maybe a bit like an open, distributed, generic, mobile
Kodu (or
here), for adults as well as children.
NetMash is intended to deliver creative empowerment to ordinary people. We professional software folk often get stereotyped as geeks, and the creative fun we often have dismissed as in some way unusual. That's a real shame, because such prejudice means that the other 99.9% of the world are simply missing out on the joy of experiencing the most creative and empowering activities humankind has yet invented.
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August 15, 2012 11:37
I just re-read my article on the Universe Web. I think it's pretty good. Indeed, to be honest, "programming as Cyberspace building" is where my heart has always been, and I'm all about following my heart this year. Especially if it's more fun, for both myself and others! Or if it opens up new worlds to new people.
In contrast, I don't see "fun" in W3C or IETF activities. Indeed, there's recently been a number of examples of tension in that world, between stabilisation and innovation, idealism and pragmatism, Enterprisey and Webby. Interestingly, all those examples have a "2.0" flavour: HTML5 (Web 2.0), HTTP 2.0 and OAuth 2.0.
My own interests are rough consensus and running code; innovation and pragmatism. Webbiness not in the W3C sense - "Web" Services, Semantic "Web", "Web" Sockets, etc. - but in the sense of "the simplest thing that works". Which is the Web of HTTP (1.1), URLs, JSON and REST, or specifically my FOREST interpretation.
I crave the simple and powerful, the cool and the fun. Which ultimately leads to the kind of thing I was describing as the Universe Web. And to be honest, I'd like to write and code for me, not for my peers and colleagues or for my career.
So, to the pursuit of pure joy in place of compromise, I'll now be focusing my energies on the journey of evolving the NetMash Java server and Android app towards an online, open, hyperlinked virtual world that is programmable in-world by users using simple rules.
Stay tuned!
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January 20, 2012 18:07
Updated: January 23, 2012 19:45
Right, let's get started with some basic conventions in the Object Network!
This part in the Object Network series
will cover URLs, HTTP headers and some common JSON patterns.
Updated 23/1/12: I changed the URLs in the example to have one of each type.
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January 19, 2012 20:58
Updated: January 22, 2012 16:05
OK, I'm trying to take a Big Idea and make it as Simple As Possible to grasp.
If we link our JSON data together and use the same formats, then our mobile, browser and
server apps can become much simpler - through clean, stable, common, shared, re-used
code - and much more powerful - through clean, stable, common, shared, linked, cached data.
This is the second part in the
Object Network series,
which will guide you away from building isolated Web APIs to engaging in a linked-up data landscape.
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November 29, 2011 23:11
Updated: January 22, 2012 16:03
It's interesting to compare the
current growth of Web APIs
with the early growth of the Web itself.
To save you jumping those links: the Web dramatically beats the APIs.
I believe that the most likely cause of such relatively slow growth (in what should be a
booming ecosystem) is that each API forms a closed silo and cannot benefit from any
network effects. Every API is different and there are no links between them. There
usually aren't any links within a silo. You can't even use a given API without first
consulting the documentation.
The Object Network is designed to fix this, with linked-up
JSON in common formats. This will allow easier mashing, sharing and cacheing of data and
allow client code to be shared and reused.
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May 10, 2011 11:11
The Web, in its purest form - declarative HTML and CSS documents, XML feeds - is
mashable, linkable, sharable. It's easy to create documents that slot into the global
Web and can be accessed on any device; accessed by just a simple link. Servers can
easily scale through statelessness and cacheing.
Native Mobile Apps are fast and slick. They are intimate with the dynamic, interactive,
tactile mobile user interface, intimate with the capabilities of the device and intimate
with the domain of mobile: photos, locations, contacts, messages.
OTS is a simple, clean, powerful approach to delivering Mobile functionality and
content that is designed to realise these benefits of both Native Apps and the Web.
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