Software is, well, soft

Tom Coates has something sensible to say about the “wikis are ugly” tempest in a teapot.

I think there’s a an underlying theme behind a lot of reviews of this kind and it’s a rather old fashioned idea of fixed and stable products. The Wiki is considered a thing that works in a way, rather than a rough accumulation of various versions of the same rough concept – each of which has some benefits and some failings. Each of which could be nothing more than the first stage in a longer and more fruitful path of evolution. Each of which could be stripped down to its core and integrated with other sites – small bits of meme DNA grafted into message-boards or weblogs or even more static editorial pages. There is no product to review with finality- there is no here here (as Gertrude Stein might have been misquoted). So we dig around and we take what we like and we make new things – some will bed down and spread, others will not. Many will be spliced with each other once more…”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *