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Editor's Note: This book is now out of print, but can still be purchased and read on-line at O'Reilly's "Safari Bookshelf."
Groupware has been the "killer application" for many years. At least that's what has been predicted. The diffusion of the groupware paradigm, however, has been very slow. Byte has always been at the forefront of groupware technology. At first through its BIX online system, later through its discussion groups, both Web-based and news net-based.
In 1995, Jon Udell became Byte Magazine's webmaster and Web columnist. He soon found himself managing an online community as well as an online publication. The site, which began as a document archive, grew into a suite of Internet and intranet groupware applications that drew together editors, writers, readers, and vendors.
Practical Internet Groupware reflects his years of collected experience and wisdom as Byte's webmaster and head of its collaboration efforts. Udell talks about the social and business needs for groupware and the technical implications of its implementation using collaborative tools. Throughout the chapters, he never loses sight of the people who have to -- in the end -- use the tools he builds. Obviously, having the right credentials (in this case highly visible credentials), gives a wholly new dimension to this book. The reader can look up from the book, point to Byte.com's site and immediately check what Udell outlines in his book.
The book is structured as a series of chapters that increasingly use advanced technology to implement the groupware paradigm.
The technologies Udell addresses and applies to group collaboration are:
Udell shows why the standard Internet applications -- email, news, and the Web -- pack more potential than most people realize. His book explains how to use them for all they are worth, how to combine them in new ways, and extend them with the help of other Internet technologies including CSS, LDAP, XML, HTML messaging, and Web-client scripting.
One of the key words coined by Udell is the Read/Write Web server. He correctly states that from the beginning, the inventors of the Web were scientists who wanted a better way to collaborate with far-flung colleagues. They intended HTTP to work as a read/write protocol. Users of the Web wouldn't just consume hypertextual content; they would also contribute and aggregate it. As the Web went mainstream, though, it became more like TV rather than groupware. The HTTP PUT function, a part of the protocol that enables browsers to upload documents and revision, was rarely implemented in Web servers.
Udell, points to a new solution, called the WebDAV server (RFC 2518), which is a protocol for Web based distributed authoring and versioning. WebDAV is based on XML, on which Udell builds extensively in the examples mentioned in his book. In fact, he proposes, it is really through the use of XML that we can deliver the kind if dynamic, adaptive, yet server-based groupware application that businesses need today.
The language used in this book is always direct and never assuming. It makes for a pleasant read, even in technically challenging sections. For the reader looking for a book taking a holistic approach to group collaboration and not specifically interested in the involved technologies other than for the purpose of the final objective, this is the book. Recommended.
| -- Moshe Bar (http://www.moelabs.com/) | From Byte On-Line, December 9, 1999 |