About this blog, taking a brief step back

I want to make sure that the content in this blog is helpful, accurate, and in some respect entertaining. This entry sums up my overall goals. Comment would be greatly appreciated.

My blogs are rarely planned and edited down "formula" white papers, like what I’d write for a magazine article. I usually take a central concept and then explore examples and related related concepts to give the reader a sort of holistic view of a given topic. Then I sprinkle it with commentary (and occasionally some weird humor) just to keep it from getting sterile and maybe stir up some discussion. My goal isn’t to provide a thorough investigation of specific topics here, but if you’re interested in the topics covered, I’m hoping this blog serves as a good jumping off point for your own continued research.

A lot of what I write is completely new for some people, and I hope it serves as a final "oh I get it now" starting point. Many of my blogs are targeted at developers who haven’t made decisions about GUI technologies yet, and to those who just want to know more about what’s out there. This is why I write about such a wide range of topics. If you’re in this category, I hope you will be open to sharing your thoughts and requests about what is still largely unknown or confusing to you.

Many of you know enough about the topics covered to be able to poke holes in the content. Your comments are very important. Whether we agree or disagree on specific topics is good fodder for forums, but my primary concern is that the information I present is accurate.

As an example, I’ve recently written two blog/articles here on the topic of modern development tools. The first is called "Still on a fence about GUI?" and the second, a follow-up posted yesterday, is "Web GUI tools – Not as different as they seem". The follow-up introduces a concept of what I call JACXX, and I provide many examples. If there is another more recognized name for that concept that I’m missing, please let me know. If you use of one of the tools that I mention and my understanding is incorrect, please let me know. Someone might say "you idiot, you’ve just described Foo". Hey, sometimes I brainfart and miss the forest for the trees. If I’m wrong let me know. That’s the point here – to get everyone on solid ground with the facts so that we can discuss them intelligently – and of course I hope people can make use of this information for actual development rather than idle discussion.

My long-term goal is to elevate our discussions about what we can do with MV, from the "don’t know which way to go because it’s mostly unknown" perspective to detailed discussions about specific technologies with regard to MV. For example, we talk about JavaScript, Ajax, PHP, Perl, and .NET in forums, but very seldom does anyone ask solid questions about using those tools with MV. Is that because the people using the tools find this connectivity part trivial? Is it because there are really only a handful of people using the tools? Do most people use purchased connectivity tools to avoid that whole tier of issues related to connectivity and technologyX?

Ultimately, I hope you look at this blog and say "that Tony guy knows something that we can use, maybe we should commission his company to provide some information or development". Sure, I enjoy writing, but I can only justify the time I spend providing free information if the rest of my time is spent generating income. So I won’t be shy in encourging you to follow-up on what you find here with a request for services. Just an hour or so of consultation time stemming from material provided here can make it all worthwhile.

Given the above, what information can I provide here so that we can we can move forward with these higher level discussions in forums and discussions about your forward directions? Your comments, suggestions, criticisms, and corrections are always welcome. Please feel free to email, post a comment here, or (for a real discussion) post a note to our forum.

Thanks for your time!