Simplicity

Cascade—three sentences, three links, great post.

I can never be that straightforward. I always want to turn everything into a narrative. Things are progressing smoothly in transferring much of the content here to the “new” old domain, visibledarkness.com. I was amazed at how easy it was to transfer this Public Address 1.0, which runs on Greymatter, and the fragments of my research wiki. It was just a matter of downloading, uploading, and changing a few permissions and paths.

The reason behind the simplicity and transportability is the lack of any complex database backend. Why does everyone feel the need to use proprietary (or open source) databases? It locks things up dreadfully, necessitating complex software to translate between one version and another. The only improvement in functionality, as far as I can see, is improved search speed. I’d trade longevity for speed any day. However, since database products are where all the action is, development-wise, a person is forced to cope with the “translation” problems.

I look at my record collection sometimes, and feel comforted. Even if all the pits on my CDs fade before I’m dead, the records will be readable because they exist as physical grooves cut in a substrate that degrades more gracefully than dyes. It’s like black and white versus color photography. Sometimes simplicity is better over the long haul. I wish developers would think that way.

I was listening to the interview with Ben and Mena Trott, and realized that their desires just aren’t coincident with what I want technology to do for me. I don’t want centralized authentication. I don’t want increasingly complex technologies. I want technologies that work while retaining some element of simplicity. Of course, this means that none of the other CMS alternatives are all that attractive either. It makes me remember the bursts of electronic complexity in music that just don’t hold up well over the long run—fingers on strings never loose their fascination, while sequencers and harmonic modifications often just sound quaint a few years down the road.