Commentary
Happy Birthday to MWM...
One year ago MWM was born after a 9 month gestation period. My goal at that time was to increase the awareness of this programming language amongst those who had no idea of the language and those who still think it got stuck in the mud 20 years ago and the only thing keeping it alive is the many lines of code that have not yet been replaced by something more ‘modern’.
This could only be done by demonstrating the language to others and by posting news about what is happening in the world of M. Have we been successful? It would be imprudent on my part to answer this question, but I feel that irrelevant of whether we have done a little or a lot of good, we have pulled on the right side.
As one issue gave way to another the load of work exponentiated to the ceiling. The first issue rocked my e-mail accounts for a few weeks. Issue 3 kept mail coming in for almost two months and with last time’s issue as this issue goes online there is still a huge amount of unread mail. This has caused a few problems the latest blunder happening a couple of weeks ago. A representative of Micronetics was visiting. We had agreed on a meeting a few weeks before. Three days before he sent me an e-mail which I didn’t read until he had left. Luckily we met and had a very good and fruitful encounter. There have been other similar blunders but I can only apologize.
In this issue you will notice that the graphical front cover and text cover have become one. The additional work necessary to build and maintain two covers could be put to better use in the inside of MWM. Also the default cover is the non JavaScript version of the page. Having to provide the URL of the straight HTML version was taking too much time. Until all browsers act the same, developing code centric pages will prove very tedious and time consuming. I wrote an article that appeared in Intranet Design on this subject. In it I highlighted some of the differences between Netscape and IE vis-à-vis JavaScript. The way things are going at the moment it seems that the split between different browsers is increasing. Poor, poor web surfer; if only you could see the other half of the net.
Today…
Unlike past commentaries, in this special issue of MWM I feel that a few words must be dedicated to those who never appear in print. There are my close friends who read certain sections of MWM and whose comments are invaluable. It’s not easy working against a deadline when someone who has had time to read the tutorial tells you that, "if I were you, I would move this chunk to a future issue because you are assuming too much". Thank you for infuriating me at the last moment. Added to the list are people who supply me information. A typical example is the piece on e-mail viruses. It commenced as an e-mail but after I passed it on, I got a reply from one of my regular sources about where to look for more information. Some of the people who help out do it out of the goodness of their heart and refuse a placing in the Thank You page. Whilst on the subject of showing gratitude, I must mention the individuals, organizations and companies who have earned a placing there because they are helping MWM. To complete the list, I must add those who send it that very interesting e-mail every now and again. Looking at so many messages, one does tend to become immune to the actual content of mail. There are occasions where the subject line or the first few words of an e-mail strike me and I read on with interest. Some of the comments you see reflected in MWM.
Whilst thanking everyone for all your help (even if it means only being a reader of MWM) I look forward to your comments and ideas so that we can make MWM even better.
