lingua franca

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@3DProgrammer.com>]

Todd Gemmell:
> realizing that there are several cultures coming together
> here and in a
> lot of cases people are putting different spins on the same
> words. Upon
> later reflection I also realize there are many gaps in language to
> describe what is and will be created out of this new "thing".
>  Certainly
> Larry and I are not the first people to realize this. Has
> anyone started
> a glossary, pidgin or something along these lines?  Thoughts?

De facto standards require a critical mass of people interested in a
problem and someone who actually does a buttload of work to create the
technology upon which everyone else decides to come along for the ride.
Without many people interested, and without some small outfit that lays
a huge groundwork, everyone reinvents the wheel ad hoc forever.

So, rather than starting glossaries, someone should band together with
someone else who's already working on something and make a product
that's as good as or better than many of the products that people have
already cobbled together for their own purposes.

Trying to get a bunch of fragmented people to agree upon something is a
complete waste of your time.  You don't solicit agreement, you create
something much better than what everyone else has, so they see the
benefit of using your system instead of the typical game of Not Invented
Here.

If there's a whole lot of potential money to be made then you can get
all sorts of "standards" processes to happen; money creates critical
mass.  I'm thinking particularly of VRML (no relation to current
problem.)  Of course, there's no money in interactive storytelling.
There's some money in being able to create stories for games, but you
don't need any fancy storytelling technology for that.  Games are still
at the stage of mainly needing visual artists, 3D graphics, AI, and a
big marketing budget.


Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.