Ithaca, New York
Areas of Expertise:
- Rails
- XML
- HTML
- CSS
- documentation
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Recent Posts | All O'Reilly Posts
Simon blogs at:
http://oreilly.com/blogs/
http://radar.oreilly.com
October 24 2012
Eric Meyer, the author of CSS: The Definitive Guide (and much more) has taught thousands of people CSS through his books, his talks, and his articles. I’ve always enjoyed hearing his take on the state of CSS, as he manages … read moreShrinking and stretching the boundaries of markup
August 14 2012
It’s easy to forget that XML started out as a simplification process, trimming SGML into a more manageable and more parseable specification. Once XML reached a broad audience, of course, new specifications piled on top of it to create an … read moreAugust 09 2012
When XML exploded onto the scene, it ignited visions of magical communications, simplified document storage, and a whole new wave of application capabilities. Reality has proved calmer, with competition from JSON and other formats tackling a wide variety of problems, … read moreJavaScript and Dart: Can we do better?
May 17 2012
O'Reilly editor Simon St. Laurent talked with Google's Seth Ladd about the challenges of improving the web. How can we build on JavaScript's ubiquity while addressing performance, team, and scale issues? read moreMay 10 2012
O'Reilly editor Simon St. Laurent talked with Yahoo's Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz about the possibilities Node opened and Mojito exploits. Yahoo's Mojito is a different kind of framework: all JavaScript, but running on both the client and the server. read moreWriting Apps as Enriched Documents
June 24 2010
I've been surprising people more people than I expected lately with the revelation that it's possible to write iPhone and Android applications as a pile of HTML and CSS documents with some accompanying JavaScript. I'm far from the first to... read moreToward a Saner Standards Process
June 10 2010
Shifting to a standards model where developers innovate and users select might produce cleaner standards with less design by committee. read moreIncorporating documentation into development
June 09 2010
A key group of technically savvy people could do a lot to improve projects, not just document them. read moreA Live Edition for Learning Rails
February 17 2010
One of the best things about Rails is that it's under constant development. With the Live Edition of Learning Rails, the book will be able to track that progress and give beginners better access to the latest and greatest Rails has to offer. read more170 years of tech book publishing, demonstrated
February 16 2010
Some of the most fascinating technical writing I've encountered recently was written 170 years ago. How is that possible? And just how different was it? read moreFebruary 15 2010
Recent claims that Adobe is blocking HTML5 are glaringly wrong, reflecting mostly the incompatibilities between the two organizations,the W3C and WHATWG, sharing the process. read moreWeb developers can rule the iPad
January 29 2010
Arise, web developers! Our time has come to dominate! read moreJanuary 28 2010
The iPad repeats Steve Jobs' all-in-one vision of the 1984 Macintosh 128K in a shiny new package. Does this spell danger for creativity? read moreWhy is HTML Suddenly Interesting?
August 26 2009
After a decade of quiet, HTML is a hot topic once again. While there is pent-up demand for new features, the conversation reflects a more basic change in the Web's landscape. read moreProgramming Contests, Community, and Business
June 10 2009
Attending the TopCoder Open, the final in-person rounds of an intense programming competition, in support of the TopCoder Cookbook, showed me possibilities that go way beyond programming or books into business models and community I came expecting to see a competition, but found a much more inclusive (and compelling) business… read moreProgramming as Live Performance
June 03 2009
As I'm writing this, twenty people are watching their peers write code. They aren't looking over anyone's shoulders, or doing peer programming - they're watching mirrors of screens at the TopCoder Open, seeing exactly how competitors work their way through algorithm problems in C++, Java, and C#. Is this something… read moreMay 19 2009
I've worked on lots of collaborative books before. Now, I'm starting on something different: a book written by competition. read morePersonalizing the Learning Conversation
May 05 2009
Twenty years of change are shifting technology from top-down broadcast-model documentation and training to a more conversational approach that shrinks the social distance between teacher and learner, personalizing our experience. read moreDreaming of Rails as the Next Microsoft Access
May 05 2009
Rails? Microsoft Access? Aren't those from different planets? Well, they may have different origins, but their similarities give me hope. read moreChoosing your application's version of Rails
March 28 2009
Rails updates versions frequently. There are a few different ways to make sure your application is running the version of Rails you think it should be, and to make sure you can run it under the version it expects. read moreFebruary 18 2009
GM's putting an end to its Saturn line shines a light on the challenge of building "a different kind of company" inside the "usual kind of company", at a time when a lot of web companies are aiming to be different. read moreFebruary 16 2009
For most people, ISBNs are random noise on the backs of books, helpful mostly for barcode scanning at the register. For publishing folk, ISBNs can actually be memorable, magic keys for jumping from one system to the next. Of course, there are now two different flavors of ISBN, the obsolete… read moreFebruary 13 2009
The way I learned computers back in the 1980s doesn't seem that different a path from the way teens are learning now - but both seem very different from the way that adults traditionally learn. Is there a way to improve adult learning by encouraging teen practices? read moreReviving the Labs - "It's alive...."
February 10 2009
After a long hibernation, O'Reilly Labs has returned, with a mix of software and code that should excite casual ebook readers as well as dedicated publishing technologists. read moreHeroku moves forward and sideways
January 17 2009
I've had a lot of positive feedback from readers for including Heroku in Learning Rails. Its web-based interface is the easiest way I know to get started with Rails programming without getting trapped in installation challenges. They're changing gears a... read moreJanuary 01 2009
My New Year's Resolution for this year is simple: practice. You don't have to achieve (or even aim for) total mastery for the practice to be worthwhile. read moreInstalling Instant Rails on Windows
December 22 2008
Instant Rails is getting old, but it's still a quick way to install Rails and start coding. This screencast shows how to download and install Instant Rails, and shows off how it works with a simple example from Chapter 2 of Learning Rails. read moreTemplates Offer Rails New Path to Ubiquity
December 16 2008
Rails application templates, just added in Edge Rails, offer Rails developers the chance to spread their wings and bring Rails to new audiences and new capabilities - and might even help Rails lead the next generation of frameworks. read moreDecember 15 2008
Bailouts are an awful thing, an admission of drastic failure. They're also a safety valve that can lessen the impact of disaster in a given area on the rest of the system. In the immediate and short term, we need to recognize that it's not just a given group whose… read moreFirst Steps in Rails (on Heroku)
December 02 2008
If you want to explore Rails, heroku.com offers an easy way to get started, using a web-based interface that neatly hides the complexity of installation and database management. read moreFirst Steps into Rails (on the Mac)
November 24 2008
Once you have Rails installed, it's time to explore the foundations of how Rails applications are put together. It's not quite programming yet - it's more looking around to figure out how the pieces fit together. read moreInstalling Rails on Ubuntu Hardy Heron (Server)
November 20 2008
Want to install a Rails development environment on a bare-bones Ubuntu server setup? It's not that hard. read moreInstalling Rails on Hardy Heron (Desktop)
November 19 2008
One of the most difficult parts of the tech review for Learning Rails was Chapter 1, installing Rails. There are way too many operating systems and choices within those operating systems to provide a straightforward explanation. To help deal with... read moreOctober 10 2008
I'm not very fond of people who claim that markets can solve all of our problems, but at the same time, I think markets can be very effective at one key economic task: setting prices. Our current financial problems derive,... read moreRecent Posts | All O'Reilly Posts
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