Alex Barnett blog

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A little less conversation a little more action please

On APML, I tend to agree with what Stowe has said on the topic and John Tropea has some good thoughts too.

To Marjolein - frankly, I'm getting tired of the attention conversation. Not because I believe it is not worthy idea, but because there's been so much talk in this area and not enough action.

Given my recent trip to Vegas, I'll quote the King to summarize my advice to the workgroup:

"A little less conversation a little more action please"

 

Comments

Chris Saad said:

Hi Alex, I agree that the conversation is long overcooked. That's why APML, for us, is the result of implementation, not academic discussion.

We have been generating and using APML type data for months now, however in the spirit of open standards we decided to offer the spec for discussion.

So in a way you could say we started with action and moved on to talking.

As it says on the site, you can find out more about our technology (the first of many we hope) for writing and consuming APML here:

http://www.touchstonelive.com/technology/

# October 3, 2006 7:08 PM

alexbarnett said:

Chris,

Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate the fact that you are moving this concept along and doing so from an implementation perspective. That's valuable, no doubt.

One thought I have on this is that I'm not sure what level of agreement you'll want to achieve with the standard *without* getting to the point of having at least two apps that talk APML.

As you know, you need to get to that point as quickly as possible.

Users need to experience the benefits of a shared / networked APML file and the other app devs need to see it *in action* before they really grokk it. A lot will roll from there.

I'm sorry my first blogged response to the APML news sounded negative. In retrospect, I really should have let you know that I think the idea in principle has my full support and am excited with its potential. I just want to see this come to fruition, so my impatience shone through :-)

Regards,

Alex.

# October 3, 2006 10:05 PM

chris@touchstonelive.com said:

I'm right there with you! :)

Consider the site and great posts like yours a call-to-action to any developers out there to join in with the fun. We have already had a few in the space latch on. Maybe they will produce something soon.

In the mean time we have done our bit to get the convo started for this particular part of the puzzle - it will probably be smarter people than me (like the guys from AT) who will help finish it.

# October 3, 2006 10:23 PM