Re: [Bodington-developers] Spring again

[Peter C. <Pet...@me...>]

> From: Alistair Young
> Why don't they just use their client in the first place?

Because there is no standard chat client, in the same way that there is
no standard document format.  I'm sure you recall the trouble we had
persuading you to even *try* MSN for the ASK project, Alistair!

One can standardise on a server and allow many clients, or on a client
and allow many servers.  If you can't assume much about your client
environment, as is typical with e-learning, you have to standardise on a
server - and coincidentally produce Yet Another Web Chat system.

There is a fix for this: aggressive standardisation.  Standardising
early eases the deployment and implementation burden.  However, this fix
is possibly worse (for the human race as a whole) than the disease, as
premature standardisation slows down innovation and forces us to live
with poor or lowest-common-denominator functions.  RDF and the layers
above it can be held up as a prime example in the Web world...

		- Peter