Scripting News podcast
Scripting News podcast

Scripting News podcast

Dave Winer

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Episodes

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Podcasts from Dave Winer, editor of the Scripting News blog, since 1994.

Recent Episodes

Boastful story of Frontier and how it relates to today
NOV 30, 2025
Boastful story of Frontier and how it relates to today
<p>I recorded this 23 minute podcast on October 31. </p><p>I didn't publish it then, but I figured at some point I would. </p><p>It's the story of how a product like Frontier comes into existence.</p><p>I had done this before, in 2020, in an <a href="http://scripting.com/2020/06/01.html#a204659">oral history</a> I did for a book a friend was writing. This podcast is how I remember it in 2025. :-) </p><p>If you want to hear how a complicated project comes together when you're developing as you're designing, which I always do -- this is for you. It takes a while to get started, and then I talk fast, and use technical terms without explaining them. Sorry for all that.</p><p>I want this kind of story told, because the folklore about how software is built or even that software is built at all, by humans, is usually wrong. It's not about invention, it's about building a new machine out of mostly pre-existing parts. Note that in the story there are zero components in the mix that we had not already perfected and commercialized. Some of them came from other developers, but most of them were remixes of themes that had appeared in earlier stories, or maybe ones that had been considered for inclusion but ended up on the cutting room floor, as in a movie editing process.</p><p>The thing about Frontier is that it made it easy for us to iterate over blogging tools when the time came to work on those. Frontier was the ideal platform for that kind of work, it's why were able to move so quickly and try out lots of approaches. But our runtime was no competition for PHP or Python with SQL. Our database wasn't written to work at that scale, unfortunately -- or a lot more of the world we use today would still be running in our environment. But the ideas persist. </p><p>Interesting sidebar not mentioned in the podcast, when we did MORE which was a really popular product on the Mac platform of the mid-late 80s, we took everything we had and put it into the product. We didn't leave a single thing out. This was because we had a devteam that could do it, and we were fairly desperate as an ongoing business just before we shipped it (1986). Apple had to loan us $400K to get to shipping! Anyway -- it worked. And that's why we called it MORE, we had no idea which if any of the features would pull people in. Turned out it was the presentations. </p><p>Anyway -- glad to finally get this out there. </p><p>Happy Thanksgiving! :-)</p>
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WordLand, the timeline and checkboxes
SEP 15, 2025
WordLand, the timeline and checkboxes
<p>I'm in the homestretch on the next release of WordLand. This version has approximately twice as many features as the last one. Because, like Radio UserLand from long ago, it does both reading and writing. But the UI is different. It's patterned after all the twitter-like products. It answers the question -- could you do a nice social network with nothing more than RSS and WordPress. And the answer is an emphatic yes.</p><p>And of course there is no center to the RSS universe, it might have benefited from one (ask me about it) but it didn't have one. Maybe for a while it looked like Google Reader would become that, but we know what happened there. </p><p>Anyway, I explain that WordLand solves a big problem for bloggers in the 2020's. We scatter our words all over creation. And we feel bad because we feel like everything should be on our blog. But forget it, that is never going to happen. Our billionaire overlords would never allow it. But if you flip the problem around and ask -- how about if I can see all the stuff I've written on all the blogs in a timeline, where all the different sources are mixed in, most-recent first. I tried a lot of approaches out, but this is the one I kept. It works, but -- it has one flaw, my linkblog. </p><p>I explain in the podcast that sometimes the linkblog overwhelms the other stuff, linkblog items are very quick so I can do a lot of them. So in the first three days I had it I lived with this, until I had to do something about it. Here's the big idea: I made it so you can temporarily turn off any of the feeds with a simple checkbox. One click and the linkblog items are gone, another click, they're back.</p><p>Anyway I want to start talking about this, I'm warming up for October. If you have questions, let me know and maybe I can answer them. I really appreciate interest in this work, this kind of stuff is a performing art. I want to empower creative people. That's why I do this. And I need to hear how that's working from smart users who care. </p><p>A couple of notes. I was thinking about putting a screen shot in here, but on more thought, it's not ready to show yet, even as a work in progress. And sorry for the rough editing job at the end. I rambled off on another topic that I want to try again. </p><p><b>Links from this podcast.</b></p><p><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/art.feediverse.org">Great Art on Bluesky</a>. </p><p>Daveverse blog <a href="https://daveverse.org/">traditional view</a>, and the <a href="https://mastodon.social/@[email protected]/">Mastodon view</a>. It's an amazing world of interop coming online. Lovin it. </p><p><a href="http://scripting.com/futureNews.html">Checkbox News</a>. A design I've been wanting to use since 2007.</p><p><a href="http://scripting.com/?tab=links">Links panel</a> on Scripting News. A place to read the linkblog items.</p>
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A new model for blog discourse
SEP 10, 2025
A new model for blog discourse
<p>When I started blogging, early on, I had a different system for discourse. </p><p>Here's how it worked: </p><p><ol><li>First each post would go out via email to a group of eleven people. I was cc'd.</p><p><li>The group was randomly chosen each time, so you might not know anyone in your group, or you might know two or three. Each time it's a different group. </p><p><li>You could reply to my post by just replying to the email. You can do a reply-all so that everyone in the group sees your comment. I would see all of them.</p><p><li>Sometimes a really interesting discussion would start that lasted days. But I can't say that anyone got married because of the groups-of-eleven. ;-)</p><p><li>If I saw a message that had a new idea or perspective, I could add it to a <a href="http://scripting.com/mail/default.html">mail page</a>.</p><p><li>Being quoted in this system is a reward, not an obligation. Important distinction. If people wanted to be heard they had to say something interesting, somewhat original and respectful. But the hope is people don't just contribute to get more attention for themselves, they do it because they really have an idea or information to share that amounted to working together. </ol></p><p>Anyway that's the story I wanted to tell in the podcast. I also explain how this will apply to today's internet, your reply will have to be public in addition to me seeing it, everyone who reads your blog will have a chance to read it too. And it will be indexed by search engines. I think people feel a little more respectful when their words clearly have their name on it and some lasting value. </p><p>I ramble a lot as in all my podcasts, sorry about that -- but if you listen to this 15-minute story at the end you will understand what I propose to build, and I think you'll be excited by the potential. And most important, I want us all to get out of the loop where we assume that the way we do discourse now is the only way to do it. Let's try out new ideas until we hit on something different that works better than what we've always used. I have a feeling there's a pony in there, or at least a milk shake. </p><p>There is a <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/scripting.com/publicfolder/downloads/podcasts/2025/09/10/howIWantoToDoDiscourseOnTheWeb.html">transcript</a>, generated by Google, and bullet points generated by ChatGPT. </p>
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