Last Friday was the Future of Web Apps Dublin 2009. It was a packed day, with the venue as crowded as the schedule. There were ten sessions, plus the ‘uni’ workshops during the breaks.

By the time I got home on the Friday night I was knackered, and I was nursing my usual post-conference headache. I came away with a lot to think about: even though the content was aimed squarely at a particular field of endeavour, and there was a very strong emphasis on making money (fair enough — food and lodging are nice to have :), much of what was said was very (surprisingly?) transferable to just about anywhere, including the volunteer/support/community work/youth work/faith spheres. That’s value for money!

This won’t be for every reader here, so click on through if you want my brief (some briefer than others) thoughts on some of the different sessions (there were others).<h3>Eoghan McCabe and Des Traynor, Unconventional web apps.</h3>

The Contrast lads did a good job after they got over the initial nerves. (For the first wee bit Des looked a little uncomfortable and Eoghan occasionally talked too fast for me to catch everything he said!)

Their gist was an admonishment to think carefully about the way you build something, and whether you make certain decisions because that’s the way it’s done or because it’s the right way to do it. Solid advice, but it’s worth remembering the first part of their presentation where they point out that conventions generally exist for a reason: Amazon.com uses a standard three-column layout and “they don’t do it for the craic!”

Their most useful observation, I think, was that the web is built on technologies that were never intended to enable the kind of rich applications they’re being shoe-horned into, so where can we examine and drop the page-based paradigm that those technologies tempt us to default to?

It was all good advice whatever you’re trying to accomplish: reflect on how convention (call it tradition, even) can interfere with effective practice.

I wasn’t at all taken with the examples of zooming site navigation (e.g. Zoomism), and I wonder how this whole thing interacts with the next session.

(By the way, the Contrast website is a nice example of doing things just a little bit differently, to super effect.)

Robin Christopherson, Apps for all in a Web 2.0 world.

Robin’s session was very different to any of the others. He works for AbilityNET and describes himself as having no useful vision, and the presentation was more of a demonstration of what it’s like to use the modern web via assistive technologies.

Alongside the more prominent points Robin made (CAPTCHAs — even “accessible” ones — exclude plenty of people, be prepared for the user accessing your content in different ways, look into all the options available to increase accessibility, the various technical details that can help or hinder), the best part of this session was seeing and hearing someone using only a screenreader and keyboard to use real sites in real ways.

I’ve been interested in web accessibility for a few years now, although I don’t always get it right, but nothing drives it home more than seeing the real-world effects. It’s similar to how when I was working in care and had to take a client to a shop in her wheelchair, I noticed something I had never spotted before — the counter where she had to pay was just above her head height, which made it difficult to deal with the teller in any sort of dignified way. Extrapolate from there, and ponder the implications for absolutely everything you do.

Emma Persky, The future is Ruby without Rails.

Emma got a rough ride. By way of making the point (in an enjoyable but very roundabout way) that you should always use the best tool for the job, she made the mistake of suggesting that Rails might not be the best way to approach every problem.

Cue fanboy ire from the audience, including a question that began, “I see what you’re saying, but given that Rails is the best way to approach 95% of problems…” Heh.

Morgan McKeagney, Yet another web app? Or a successful business?

“… or are you just playing guitar in your bedroom?” Well put. But I do enjoy sitting on my bed playing guitar :)

Matthew Ogle, How to build a desktop app that helps your web app succeed.

This was a fascinating tour of Last.fm and their approach to gathering data. (To see a little of what they do, you can check out my Last.fm page.) Matt also quietly plugged Last.fm’s new tech, Boffin, which does interesting things with your music library.

Simon Willison, Web app security horror stories.

I’m glad I’m able to say that there was nothing here I hadn’t heard of, but this session still provided some heebie-jeebies.

David Heinemeier Hansson, Doing a start up in the real world.

DHH gave the presentation that I think most attendees will have found most memorable. He’s a guy who talks with complete confidence — to the point where I found it quite off-putting. Once I got past his presentation style, he did talk good, and inspirational, sense. His advice boiled down to, “If you want to do something, do it; don’t be put off by nay-sayers; don’t expect someone else to do it for you; and ‘start up’, like the ‘real world’, is a nonsense — build a business.”

Of course, given that all this web app and businessy stuff is more of a sideline for me (early mornings and late nights), I did feel a little bit of an impostor at FOWA. Even so, it was all well worth the ticket and the early morning train ride, and I’ve got plenty to think about — and maybe an idea or two to code up.

(PAW2009 10/52)

What’s the biggest city in the world?

Two trips to the banks of the Liffey last week. The first was for an exam my wife was sitting (no results yet, but it won’t be long) and the second was for an intensive day at FOWA Dublin 2009. Maybe more on the second one later.

I’ve never been to Dublin much. I’ve shifted between train stations a couple of times on my way further south; the occasional day trip; a couple of times accompanying my better half on her way to exams. It’s a city that needs to be explored some more.

Of course, the current state of sterling against the euro doesn’t help. €2.30 for a Coke at Liberty Hall on Friday was even less fun after the exchange rate. At least I managed to get my train ticket for £12.50.

Dublin. Because it keeps on doublin’ and doublin’ and doublin’. Yup.

Whatever you think of Jeffrey Donaldson, he has a reputation as a decent constituency MP. My wife wrote to him a couple of years ago, and he regularly sent her letters updating her on what he was hearing about her issue. (“Her issue,” that sounds very mysterious, doesn’t it? The thing that she wrote to him about.)

Three days after firing him off an email from the Parliament website, I got a letter back saying that he shared my concerns with Harriet Harman’s comments, and would raise them with her. The letter was quite definite in its tone, which is nice. Speedy service indeed.

Of course, I doubt that it will actually change her attitude in any way, but there you go. Government can be at least slightly accessible.

Yesterday, I wrote a letter to my MP.

I say letter. You can send emails through the Parliament website, these days. It makes it very easy. Also, you’d think it would lead to getting ignored, but apparently not. I’ve done it once before, you see — only once, my wife’s more of that kind of agitator than I am — and I got a substantial reply. I may occasionally fill a pen with a nice green ink, but I don’t make a habit of writing as Concerned from Culcavy.

I am, though.

RBS goes from being one of the biggest banks in the world (whatever that means) to needing a barrow-full of money from the Treasury to keep going, so the head of the company did the decent thing and resigned — taking with him a pension that in any given year will provide him with quite probably more money than I will earn between here and my own retirement. The Government, as represented by Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman, are determined that he won’t get to keep it, even though that’s what he was promised, contracted and given.

Both Mr Brown and Ms Harman have been very vocal in the press, with the latter being quoted as saying:

It might be enforceable in a court of law this contract but it’s not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that’s where the Government steps in.

That’s what bothers me, and I’m of the sort of political leaning that tends to like government involvement in things.

It’s like this:

• Thing's went really wrong on Sir Fred Goodwin's watch, so he resigned. That's as it should be.
• The amount of money he's being given as a pension is horrendous, but it is what he's entitled to by his contract (I am not a lawyer, of course, and this is based purely on press coverage).
• Nobody, except possibly the man himself, thinks it's fair or reasonable for him to take it all, but the decision is his and he seems to want to keep it. Honour, justice, whatever, might suggest that he shouldn't, but it's his call.
• Prominent folks in Government are hinting at intervention to see that he doesn't get to keep it.

It’s pretty objectionable in this case, but the contract of employment can be one of the major things that protects employees from abuse (assuming that contract is fair and just). Suggesting that an employee’s entitlements in a contract can be reduced after the fact, just because we don’t like them, is worrying. Even more so is the idea that Government will get involved in a specific individual case like this. After Sir Fred, who will be the next one to have the rug pulled out from under them?

The damage is done; learn the lesson (a clause along the lines of “If you make a hash of it then you don’t get quite as big a pile of money”?) and move on.

(PAW2009 09/52)

The dome that I noticed was this one, of the Robinson & Cleaver building opposite the City Hall in Belfast. Its domes have sharper points than most around town :)

This photo was taken from the porch at the front of the City Hall, looking past the statue of Queen Victoria. Strangely, the morning I took this was the first time I’d been in the grounds of the City Hall other than at a Christmas market. The building itself has been closed for renovation, and I could hear the sounds of very focussed work from an open window, but I believe the works are coming to an end. I’ll need to make the effort to see inside when it reopens.

I’ve been paying more attention to Belfast above head-height. I think the project to photograph the top halves of buildings around town might be a goer. We’ll see.