#indiewebcamp 2012-10-12
2012-10-12 UTC
tilgovi, Nadreck, dascher, josephboyle, eschnou, danbri, singpoly1a, lmorchard, catsup, aaronpk, benward, elf-pavlik, barnabywalters, friedcell, friedcell1, spinnerin, Alex_Lykos, donpdonp, tantek, tommorris and jancborchardt joined the channel
# barnabywalters evening tantek — hm, have I made my AS thoughts public before?
# barnabywalters I made the lib because AS more-or-less suited what I needed. I was building a similar set of classes anyway, and decided to just implement AS
# barnabywalters personally, I think bits of it are ridiculous
# barnabywalters the number of object types and verbs, for example
# barnabywalters and some of the semantics are questionable — e.g. contnet vs summary, displayName vs title
# barnabywalters tantek: well, that’s what you’ve been doing, and what I intend to do
# barnabywalters certainly I see no benefit to implementing every possible verb!
# barnabywalters most of them are stupid IMO
# barnabywalters vaguely. Wasn’t it Chris Messina and some other folks during the last big FSW push?
# barnabywalters I wasn’t really active on the web then
# barnabywalters oh, I’ve seen the wiki :| average “last updated” date = ~2 years ago
# barnabywalters the github is more active, and the *shudder* mailing list occasionally has some activity
# barnabywalters but no, not an active community
# barnabywalters heh — didn’t facebook implement it for a few minutes/months/whatever then drop it?
# barnabywalters Activitystreams
# barnabywalters I think Flattr are using AS now, as well as withing hAtom
# barnabywalters give me a sec…
# barnabywalters oh yeah, they’re using your as-objecttype|verb class as well
# barnabywalters I have been writing as-verb-post as it doesn’t require all AS parsers to maintain a list of verbs and object types
# barnabywalters so they’re using as-bookmark and as-like
# barnabywalters and publishing what looks like valid AS json
# barnabywalters sure
# barnabywalters where the verb is implied
# barnabywalters tantek: for my notes it certainly is, however I my articles are somewhere inbetween blog posts and wiki pages most of the time, so update will be common there
# barnabywalters tantek: I wrote about that exact pattern here: http://waterpigs.co.uk/articles/creative-css3
# barnabywalters along with my silly CSS to make up for browser’s not doing anything useful with it
# barnabywalters I also intend on writing some js to produce a Smallest Federated Wiki-like history at the bottom from the ins/del datetimes
# barnabywalters tantek: implementing that made me wonder how many other gems there are in the CSS spec. One day I’ll read all the way through it :)
# barnabywalters yeah, it’s not great. But I figured I’d handle that when it becomes a problem
# barnabywalters I’m also going to make the addition of datetimes automatic (currently it is manual)
# barnabywalters yes, that is why I wasn’t including datetime on ins with a related del
# barnabywalters it’s another thing on my long todo list :)
# barnabywalters adding more advanced behaviour through js, that is
# barnabywalters I would love to truncate it with css and reveal the entire thing on hover, but I couldn’t find a way to do that
# barnabywalters so for the moment just muting it will do
# barnabywalters awesome idea!
# barnabywalters goes off to try it
# barnabywalters AS can wait for the moment ;)
# barnabywalters tantek: hm, can’t get overflow: hidden to work properly, so I’ll leave that for future experimentation
# barnabywalters RE object types and microformats: tricky one
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# barnabywalters and also display:inline-block? I am using width:5em at the mo and nothing is happening
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# barnabywalters heh, apparently display:// is a URL scheme now
# barnabywalters so… img and form elements are inline but *not* flow elements?
# barnabywalters needs to read the HTML5 spec again
# barnabywalters OT, but is there an easily readable version of the CSS spec somewhere? Like HTML5 for authors-not-implementors?
# barnabywalters woah — that’s quite hefty! I’ll have a go at tackling it and ask if I get confused :) Thanks
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# barnabywalters RE µf+as, the awkwardness I see is that a h-feed could contain all sorts of object types, potentially at the same time
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# barnabywalters so there’s not much that could be gleaned from just h-entry, although h-review and h-event could be parsed as AS object types
# barnabywalters ah, my misunderstanding. I thought you meant parse the AS object type from the microformat type
# barnabywalters yep, h-as works
# barnabywalters the next question is how far to mirror AS within µf
# barnabywalters e.g. do we have h-as-activity with a p-as-verb and then a h-as-object with h-as-object-type, u-as-url, etc…
# barnabywalters .h-as-object.h-card h-as-object-type-actor u-url u-as-url, and so on
# barnabywalters it gets a bit silly after a while, especially when you get into “media link” objects
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# singpoly1a a lot of the AS stuff is redundant
# singpoly1a like, actor is just hAtom author
# barnabywalters tantek: I got the truncating CSS to work — it needed display: inline-block and white-space: nowrap
# barnabywalters singpoly1a: absolutely
# barnabywalters personally I am more concerned about the naming problems, e.g. "title” vs “displayName”
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# barnabywalters btw if for some reason anyone wants to see the docs for my site and the code I’m producing (including the ActivityStreams classes) most of it is here: http://waterpigs.co.uk/docs/
# brennannovak barnabywalters: yo yo. how goes it?
# barnabywalters hey brennannovak, not too bad thanks, you?
# barnabywalters tantek: just added it to the article (along with an <ins> tag but not in the code - that is an iffy one)
# brennannovak barnabywalters: pretty good, been slammed working at startup gig- been meaning to look over all your rad commits :)
# barnabywalters brennannovak: they’re mainly quite boring, just lots and lots and lots of docblocks :) The documentation they produce is rather nice though
# barnabywalters tantek: the current AS approach seems to be “come up with every possible use case and build that into the spec”, which worries me
# brennannovak barnabywalters: boring, but über important
# barnabywalters brennannovak: if you want to see what the docs look like, they’re up at http://si.waterpigs.co.uk/docs/
# singpoly1a tantek: but they tend to overlap a lot
# singpoly1a Well, yeah. Trying to replace things in the base spec was always weird. But even the whole post vs note thing is weird
# barnabywalters singpoly1a: note is an object type, post is a verb ;)
# singpoly1a barnabywalters: Oh, right. Whatever the names are. There are multiple "chunk of text I made" objects
# barnabywalters singpoly1a: I agree with tantek though, note and article are different enough for the difference to be valid
# barnabywalters for me it’s not about length so much as structure
# singpoly1a Maybe. I think status/note/article are all different kinds of "chunk of text"
# singpoly1a tantek: +1
# singpoly1a I think I was directly involved in AS discussions about 4 times, and I spend all my time advocating using combinations of existing microformats for mont of the data (which the MySpace people kind of liked, and no one else did)
# singpoly1a s/mont/most
# barnabywalters singpoly1a: a while back (when I was first came across fsw and indieweb) I wrote a whole load about the status/note/update/tweet thing: http://waterpigs.co.uk/articles/statuses-updates-notes-mess
# barnabywalters it may be a bit out of date
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# barnabywalters I must have missed that
# singpoly1a I used to (/ still do) advocate using HTML+uf1 for APIs, but people always think it's "weird" (at least, that's the reaction I usually get)
# barnabywalters tantek: this is another of the few reasons I though namespaced object types/verbs might be a good idea
# barnabywalters it forces an app/organisation to take ownership of the verb, and reduces the perceived barrier to entry i.e. having to make a UI for *every* object type and support *every* verb
# singpoly1a tantek: but if there's a canonical JSON transform, then why not just use JSON? The biggest thing about uf2 that makes me uncomfortable is it has the sort of "data format" feeling that XML, JSON et al have, instead of the focus on vocabulary for existing semantics that uf1 is
# singpoly1a So does uf1... if you have to parse HTML (beacuse all they publish is HTML) then having a mapping to JSON doesn't help you
# barnabywalters you get a canonical JSON transform without having do content negotiation (best case) or maintaining multiple copies (worst case)
# singpoly1a In fact, I came to ufs back in the blogger days specfically because we could only publish HTML
# barnabywalters and notes/articles live in completely different sections on my site
# barnabywalters tantek: the advantage is debatable if JSON is available as it’s more lightweight and parsable, but that is certainly an advantage
# singpoly1a Sure. I'm in favour of using just HTML and not having a seperate API. But if one just publishes HTML then any "JSON transform" would have to be on the processor's side, but at that point the processor can just output a data structure for actual use instead of JSON
# barnabywalters esp. when HTML gives you more data e.g. stuff in <head>
# singpoly1a Anyway, I didn't really mean to start up the uf1 vs uf2 discussion again. I know I'm the only one clinging to the beauty of uf1 :)
# barnabywalters singpoly1a: everywhere I’ve seen which is using µf2 is also supporting µf1
# barnabywalters the only place I don’t is in my single element h-cards because that would kinda defy the purpose
# barnabywalters tantek: yeah, for the implied patterns there’s no good way to be backwards compatible
# barnabywalters sure — as I said, they’re the only place I’m *not* providing back compatibility
# barnabywalters tantek: the library is ultimately to be dogfooeded, so I am only adding stuff which I need at the moment
# barnabywalters s/dogfooeded/dogfooded
# barnabywalters and I have raised issues on the AS spec github RE some of my concerns over naming
# barnabywalters your approach to verb\type use is a good one
# barnabywalters tantek: yep, arguably things like updates to articles could be expressed via a note
# barnabywalters at the moment I separate activities from objects
# barnabywalters http://waterpigs.co.uk/activity is the principal feed for me
# barnabywalters tantek: the UI is not optimised, since it’s mainly for consumption via ATOM at the moment
# barnabywalters (add .atom to the URL or send an Accept: header ;))
# barnabywalters but it’s somewhere I’m experimenting a lot with
# barnabywalters heh, sure
# tantek perhaps add that to the http://microformats.org/wiki/hatom-examples-in-wild ?
# barnabywalters oh god, that copy is so broken
# barnabywalters oops! I broke that with my changes today
# barnabywalters will fix tomorrow
# barnabywalters yep, I’m using h-feed all over my site now so I’ll add it all to the wiki now
# barnabywalters activitystreams
# barnabywalters heh
# barnabywalters seems the most likely place
# barnabywalters heh — https://twitter.com/al3x/statuses/53982402 “Twitter can haz microformats”. not any more :/
# barnabywalters oh thanks Loqi
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# waterpigs.co.uk edited /ActivityStreams (+403) "Added github link and link to the issues I raised with them" (view diff)
# tantek.com edited /ActivityStreams (+1863) "add summary/origins, indieweb perspectives, on verbs vs just posts" (view diff)
# barnabywalters is adding thoughts on separation of verbs+posts and how that relates to syndication and POSSE
# singpoly1a I think your perspective of taking the AS work as prior art but not an ideal is the way to go
# singpoly1a AS tried to solve too much at once and sort of ended up with the "v2 problem" in v1
# tantek.com edited /ActivityStreams (+88) "/* Indieweb perspectives */ See also my list of object types by shortcode" (view diff)
# waterpigs.co.uk edited /ActivityStreams (+517) "/* Verbs vs just posts */ added thoughts about separating objects from activities" (view diff)
# singpoly1a I think in practise specifically for AS we never saw anyone (to my knowledge) even try to build a client. I keep playing at it, but have never got all the way there. So most of what we need or might want is sort of untested and will be until such a thing gets built, I think
# barnabywalters singpoly1a: the lack of a client for all these technologies is something I am interested in addressing soon-ish
# barnabywalters I have some ideas for what I would consider to be the ”ideal” feed reader, and I want to try and make it
# singpoly1a barnabywalters: cool. I've blogged about it and written some codes repeatedly, but I often get to a point that solves my current problems and leave it
# barnabywalters singpoly1a: do you have URLs for where you’ve blogged about it? I’d be interested to see prior work
# singpoly1a Well, feed readers in general never took off, I think. Most of my family and other such "normals" are just discovering the potential very recently. They're all on email newsletters still
# barnabywalters singpoly1a: and yet such “normals” are more than comfortable using facebook/twitter
# barnabywalters I used to use RSS readers, and found twitter was a better way of following people
# barnabywalters tantek: the ideas I have for my ideal feed reader combine the decoupled publisher/subscriber/data store idea with my thoughts on web activities and some other ideas I had
# tantek ok that's enough braindump on this from me for now - http://indiewebcamp.com/ActivityStreams
# barnabywalters tantek: I added a bit about why I separate activities and objects. I will probably do a more comprehensive writeup on my own site sometime
# singpoly1a https://singpolyma.net/2009/04/my-ultimate-aggregator/ https://singpolyma.net/2010/10/thinking-about-aggregators/ https://singpolyma.net/actionstream/initial-mockup-of-my-aggregator-idea-httpsingpolyma-netp439-httpi42-tinypic-com1zbtf2u-png/ https://singpolyma.net/2009/05/poshstream-a-poshformat-profile-of-activitystreams/
# barnabywalters singpoly1a: marvellous, thanks!
# singpoly1a also some code (with I mostly interact with over XMPP right now): https://github.com/singpolyma/aggregator
# barnabywalters singpoly1a: I like the look of your POSHStream proposal
# barnabywalters tantek: great braindump!
# @t interesting #indiewebcamp IRC chat on #ActivityStreams, captured on wiki: http://indiewebcamp.com/ActivityStreams. contributions welcome. (ttk.me t4LR2)
# barnabywalters tantek: yeah, I find that — wiki page, sheet of paper, whatever. The act of writing thoughts down shapes them further
# barnabywalters and organises them
# barnabywalters okay, getting late over here now. Thanks for interesting discussion everyone, as always :)
# barnabywalters is signing off. goodnight
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# @BarnabyWalters Some of the social advantages of s/app.net/#indieweb: http://www.mattheerema.com/web-tech-design/2012/10/the-app-net-plunge-and-related-social-media-realizations/ /via @sophiedennis
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