Folders are not a very efficient way to find things – searches are. Can we take a database and do the same thing for the web that we’ve done for data? We haven’t done it in a way where you get back information. We get content. The lesson of the last ten years is that you open up your formats directly. When you do that, you get a huge increase … an equivalent explosion in data.

Querying XML data, Bosworth said, was too complicated and took too long to build standards. But a framework for querying web data (not content, but data, which means tagging and categorization) could be easier to build and would scale “effortlessly.” He cited the success of RSS 2.0, which he said “won in a walk” because of its simplicity. Finally, he dropped this tantalizing prediction for anyone who accomplished this vision: “You guys can be Google too. You can scale up and out in ways Oracle can only dream of.”

Update: An earlier PowerPoint version of Bosworth’s talk.

Other reaction: Scott Mace.

This afternoon we began classes and OOP, which have been a big mental hurdle for me. But I think I’m starting to get a handle on it. Tomorrow we’ll go deeper on classes, plus talk about Zope and Internet scripting before I have to cut out early to catch my flight back to BWI. I’ve already cleaned up some smaller scripts that I’ve written and look forward to doing more. That’s a good sign.