Plan for 2007

New Year is a good time to look forward to the things we hope to achieve over the next year. So I thought I'd define now my main (technological) priorities for the year ahead so that I can get some sense of focus.

1. Get up to speed on RDF and get using it in applications. I am not a total stranger to RDF but I've not used it at all so far. The main focus of my effort for now is a new project called Mauvespace. Mauvespace is an open-source web application that is a cross between a semantic CMS for personal homepages and a full social networking service. I don't want to hype it too much now though until there is something to show. But I hope very soon to roll up all of my homepage stuff from Mauveweb into Mauvespace, then throw it open to other people to use it for the same thing, either on my server or on their own. This frees up the mauveweb.co.uk domain, which could become a place for web projects. Sorry about all the 'Mauve's. I guess I'm not very imaginative with names. Although, it works as a brand, I suppose.
2. Deploy some applications using Zope. My Python web applications are becoming increasingly Zope-like. The latest one I've been working on for a client is a self-contained web server, but that's partly because I wanted very careful handling of file uploads. I needed to remove file size and memory limits imposed by PHP, and I implement concurrent querying of the status of uploads, which allows me to provide AJAX progress bars. There are lots of parallels with Zope: that it's Python; that it's a web server; that any persistence is object-based (although in this application it's in-memory persistence; non-volatile data is retrieved from other network services mandated by the brief). Anyway, in 2007 I hope to transfer from ad-hoc Zope-like systems to Zope proper with all the advantages that brings. It's just a shame there have always been reasons not to so far. Unfortunately Mauvespace is PHP by necessity. PHP is the only language that enjoys widespread hosting support and I consider that vital.
3. Hack Inkscape. Inkscape is of course hugely important to my work and as a result I've become quite involved with making sure it meets my needs, mainly through bug reporting, feature requesting, and so on. I would like to stretch my C++ legs and improve things, if I find time. Incidentally Inkscape 0.45 has been bug hunted and is moving to feature freeze very soon. The headline news is the Gaussian blur feature but there are a plethora of other improvements too.
4. Continue the high standard of technical commentary on this blog :) Actually, I wish I could get it more organised and make it more accessible to people who aren't knowledgable web developers. But if it would be less personally useful to me if that was the case. So the status quo may have to suffice.