Archive for April, 2008

In a recent article, IAllenkelhet.no (Norwegian) claims that a survey conducted last year revealed that while 90% of us expect web developers to have expert knowledge about HTML, a mere 35% of the developers actually do. Even fewer know much about WAI or WCAG.

Unfortunately, this is probably very close to the truth.

I believe that it might be due to the fact that many developers are highly trained and skilled professionals, for example computer scientists, software engineers, etc. Having a degree, they are expected to just “know” such a simple thing as HTML.

Sure, most probably understand the concept of opening and closing tags (although many fall short), but I doubt the majority has ever looked up the HTML spec. at W3.org, or know how to use the elements specified by the standard. Probably because HTML is considered too simple — i.e. not that interesting.

But if you aren’t interested in learning about how to use the available tools, you shouldn’t be working with them.

</rant>

My most recent attempt at Explaining Topic Maps.

The presentation Making Sense of the Semantic Web (by Nova Spivack) is a good introduction to the semantic web and includes some points that might be nice to have when explaining the semantic web and the importance of semantic technologies to newcomers.

It’s from The Next Web Conference (found via NRK Beta).

Better late than never…

Topic Maps 2008 - Day 1

Alex Wright of New York Times held the opening keynote of Topic Maps 2008. Wright talked about “Hierarchies, Networks, and the web that Wasn’t“.

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I am currently at the 2nd International Topic Maps Conference, held in Oslo, Norway; Topic Maps 2008. Today was tutorial day.

This is what I got some insight into today (they are all bits and pieces, but I include the notes here for sharing).

Open Source Topic Map Portals

Arnar Lundesgaard, the lead developer of Zope Topic Maps, held a 1/2 day presentation on ZTM3. For me, it was vital to attend this introduction to ZTM3, as I have high hopes for it … and we will def. be building sites on it in the not too distant future.

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