Code = Conversation

Lots of things are running through my head nowadays (makes sleeping difficult, I tell you). I think I’ve been frustrated for long enough now, so I might as well try and structure myself a little.

Maybe this helps me start on some of the things I’ve been putting off for too long now?

• Patents on software. I’ve heard some proponents say that the EUCD (and the Norwegian implementation of it) are only going to effect software-controlled technical devices (whereof the software only is a part of the physical device). This, IMHO, is still absurd because software is instructional language. Even if you make these automatable instructions a part of some patentable physical device, the instructions are still language.
• Collaborative Authoring Platforms. We know free software and it’s brethren development methods. With CAPs I’d like to look beyond the software and see if some of these principles can be applied successfully in more general authoring environments. I’m not thinking about blogs and wikis and the like, but of authoring in general.
• Knowledge Management. I’m still a newbie when it comes to KM, and when I read Dave Pollard’s blog or similar KM, management or information design blogs, I get the gut feeling that there’s something amiss at the place I work. It could be that I’m just expecting too much, or that I’m living with too unrealistic ideals, but this doesn’t change the fact that something should be improved. Not sure what yet, but I’ll keep you posted.
• Local community building. I’ve been trying to make Oslo Perl Mongers into a self-sustaining group, and basically had my fears confirmed – that people are too busy. We decided to arrange the Nordic Perl Workshop 2006, so we’ll see if this will improve the life expectancy of Oslo.pm.
• Information usability and accessability. I recently looked into frameworks for replacing the intranet at work. I found that creating a good intranet is not easy by any standards. One could say that most “users” of an intranet have quite low expectations of what kind of functionality they need/expect (e.g. “I just need something to publish with!”), but my work cannot stop there – sure I could just have set up a simple CMS (there are literally hundreds of them! Lots of good OSS ones too.) but then I would ignore the long-term effects of using a particular tool. Basically, we need not only to be able to publish, but we need also to do multi-publishing, keep track of metadata (categories, keywords), create new custom applications, integrate these and older ones into a coherent intuitively understandable whole, and then to boot, make it all indexable and searchable.
• Self-motivation and motivation in general. I’m still getting there, and this blog is one of the things I’m trying to help me Get Things Done. Right now I’m too distracted by all the stuff floating around in my head.

I think there’s still more “potentially public” things I need clearing up, but this’ll do for now.