[GNU/consensus] Who are the new kids on the block?

[hellekin (GNU/consensus)]

As an intermezzo while the User Data Manifesto is still cooking,
I'd like to ask a simple question so that we can feed the wiki a bit and
bring in more people.

IMO, there are interesting side-effects going on in the online world,
regarding the complex relations of technology development, attention
scarcity, attractiveness of novelty, and NIH syndrome.

For example, as Melvin keeps pointing out, there are existing semantic
web technologies that are working, and decentralized, but lack of
visibility: FOAF, RDF, WebID, etc.

There's also plentiful of "niche" social networking that actually gather
millions of users, but are not perceived as social networking at all
because they lack the general purpose of the giant players, such as
MMORPG, the good old FICS and MUDs and MOOs... Without mentioning our
beloved IRC, or such prestigious sidekicks such as blogs, mailing-lists,
and wikis.

Each new generation of developers--i.e. every few months these days,
seem to look at the previous stuff and think "yeah, well, not good
enough." They quickly come up with shiny new concepts and
implementations, and then what? Each new language gathers a herd of
enthusiasts and soon, an old bum such as Javascript finds rejuvenation:
NodeJS is born, and the world is rewriting Lisp, Perl, Python, and Ruby
libraries in ECMAscript!

So I understand that is a fast development, and that you can run the
same code on the server or on the client, blurring the architectural
foundation, and certainly there are actual innovations, in the sense of
iterations not previously contemplated, but... What is driving all of
this? Is there a technical, and engineering foundation to embracing such
drastic changes every couple of years? Or is there something else, more
irrational going on?

With that in mind, which does not really call for a debate, but rather
for personal reflection on the evolution of techniques, and the
refinement of technologies vs. starting from scratch, I'm wondering
who's on your radar appearing as truly innovative in our problem space.

==
hk

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