James Wilding's Weblog

Tag: opinion

July 9, 2010

Traditionalism and Religion

So, the church is at it again.

Today the Church of England’s General Synod meets to discuss the prospect of ordaining women bishops. Women priests have been allowed for a while now (where “a while” means about 0.0001% of the 2000-year life of the church), but women bishops? Goodness me no.

The main theological argument against women bishops (and women priests, for that matter) seems to be this: Jesus chose male disciples; those disciples chose male successors, therefore a precedent has been set. It’s men all the way down, whether we like it or not. Jesus knew best, and he picked guys.

This is an important point. Purity of tradition, and all that. Unwavering faith to ancient ideals in the face of a spiritually bankrupt modern world. Unquestioning reverence for the son of God. All good things.

But maybe we’re not taking this far enough.

As we know, the disciples were not just men: they were technically Jewish men (Christianity being an offshoot of Judaism back then). And if biblical scholars are to be believed, that all had beards. Well: those are two important precedents right there, and is the church following them? I hope so, for my eternal souls’ sake (Rowan Williams is doing alright on the beard front, but last time I read the news I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a Jew).

Also: all of Jesus’ original disciples are dead. Have been for years. And, they lived in Israel. So what we’re really looking for are bearded, middle-eastern, kind-of-Jewish, male, dead people as bishops. That’s the only way to ensure the purity of the faith, and create the kingdom of God on earth.

Or maybe that’s just going too far. I mean, why should the modern church be inflexibly ransomed to every single tiny decision made by Jesus two thousand years ago, which decisions were obviously informed by cultural and religious considerations almost entirely irrelevant to life today?

Oh.

2 comments
March 5, 2010

Hello HTML5

HTML has just reached a major milestone with the publication of six working drafts of the markup language’s specification (via).

Despite being technical documents, these specs also make for interesting reading if you’re at all curious about the evolution of the web’s mother tongue. A great place to start is the history of HTML in the main HTML5 spec: there’s some detail here about how HTML5 came to be, as well as some brief information about the aborted XHTML2 effort. This section helps you understand why HTML5 exists at all.

Next, you’ll want to know what elements are available for HTML5 authors: for this, start with “The elements of HTML” (again, in the main spec). This section lists HTML5′s tags and explains how to use them; new tags such as section, nav, article, and aside are covered here.

As a web developer, you’re going to be writing HTML5, so also read “The HTML syntax” for more detail on how HTML5 documents should be structured. The section called “Writing HTML documents” is especially useful, and includes information on the doctype (previously important but now “a mostly useless, but required, header”).

If you’re put off by technical language, be reassured that the spec makes an effort to be readable by humans too: after the spec for doctype syntax, for example, we get this summary:

In other words, <!DOCTYPE HTML>, case-insensitively

Despite all the HTML5 websites out there, I think it’s really important for developers to go to the source and read the original spec: it’s surprisingly accessible, and even glancing at it will help you understand where HTML5 is coming from.

comments closed
February 22, 2010

No Magic, Just Progress

Every so often, I read about how the internet is massively changing the way businesses and customers interact. Today I read a Guardian book review that explained how

“Networked markets are beginning to self-organise [...] People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors.”

A lot of people think that the internet creates new forms of customer behaviour. I disagree: I think the internet primarily gives more emphasis to existing forms of behaviour.

Anyone who’s ever worked with small businesses will know that word of mouth is extremely important, and that customers will naturally organise themselves into ad-hoc groups which support individuals and offer a way for newcomers to get information on what the Guardian calls “vendors”.

If that sounds too theoretical, think about restaurants. You probably know a few friends who can offer restauarant reviews or suggest a new place to eat — even explain wine lingo if you’re new to that side of things. There’s your self-organising community: all the information and support you need.

Here’s the important point: you don’t have to go online for any of this. These customer communities have existed for hundreds of years: do we really believe that before the world went online, everyone just called up their local restaurant and said, “Hi. Are you good at cooking?”…?

The power of the internet is that it supports and encourages these communities, and in some cases makes them possible where they wouldn’t have been before. But the communties themselves aren’t new phenomena: there’s no magic here, just progress — old things appearing in new ways.

We really should be cautious about claims that the internet is changing the basic nature of business: it’s not. What’s happening is closer to evolution than revolution, and those who tell you otherwise are probably trying to sell books.

comments closed
February 20, 2010

Internet Electioneering

A quote from Labour’s Douglas Alexander, on consulting with the US Democrats about Labour’s election campaign:

“[We expected them to tell us] modern campaigning begins and ends with the internet. Actually, they said this is about peer-to-peer communication — the internet just gives you new ways of having that conversation.”

The internet really is just a communication tool: one day (soon) it will be as all-pervasive, and as universally accepted, as the telephone.

comments closed
February 8, 2010

The Human Web

Go read A List Apart. This is one of the premier websites for informing, educating, and inspiring people who design and develop websites; its pages are full of articles on user science, usability, information architecture, accessibility — all things which, when done well, makes websites simpler and/or easier to use. This is a good thing.

I suspect that most people who love web standards and usability are probably geeks at heart: we like nice clean systems and we love it when things fit together in a clean, coherent whole. We don’t like mess, we don’t like complexity.

This is also a good thing.

Trouble is, we forget why we do this stuff. We forget that usability is about, you know, making things easier to use, and make it instead about following rules, evangelising, doing the “right thing”. We criticise websites which don’t properly use web standards without remembering why those standards are important — this isn’t a competition to see who can best conform to the HTML specs; it’s a chance to make sites which work better for normal people.

Yes, normal people. Because we’re not normal. In comparison to the majority of people who operate online, we are different, because we understand how the system works! If you’ve every watched your mother, or grandmother, use the web, you’ll know what I mean.

These — your mother, your grandmother, the non-techies — are the people who web standards, usability, and all those other disciplines are made to help. The most important thing is this: when used well, these disciplines should not be apparent to website users. Those users don’t care how good websites are implemented; they just care that they’re good.

Take a look at the progress of other technology: Apple’s iPhone is easy to use, intuitive, simple. Do normal users care that it’s running HTML5 with offline storage? Do they care that its browser is one of the most forward-thinking when it comes to web standards? Do they care that it uses a custom operating system? Of course not. These things are all great, but they’re great because they help make the iPhone easier to use.

When you get down to it, what is the web? It’s a way for humans to communicate. Whether you’re buying a book, booking a holiday, subscribing to a mailing list, or developing an application, the web should be made for human beings — it was created to help human communication and (unless we’re going to get all sci-fi) that’s what it will always be for.

Next time you’re knocking some poor young HTML student for using <b> instead of <strong>, or droning on about usability like everyone should give a damn, take some time to put things in perspective. Our primary aim on the web should be to help other humans; everything else is a waste of time.

comments closed