I thought now would be an appropriate time to clear up a definition. Coin it, even, if I may be so bold.
I got a bit of flack (and a few smirks) when I gave myself the title
"Presentation Layer Architect". It sounds pretty pretentious, I admit.
Marketing-drone-like, even. I realised afterwards that I probably need
to clarify it, because it's actually carefully thought through, believe
it or not… So here goes:
Currently, in the technology world, we're experiencing a large-scale
move towards convergence. Some of this convergence is taking place at
the interface level (think
PDA-cellphone-camera-videorecorder-musicplayer-gaming-consoles - be
realistic, that's what they are - and then think about how outrageous
they would have been considered ten years ago). Some of this
convergence is taking place at the processing layer. These days, it's
easier for accounting packages to talk to CRM and HR systems than ever
before. Other parts of this convergence are taking place at application
level. Think about how powerful a much criticised (by those who don't
get it, not us) tool like Microsoft Outlook has become as a
wide-reaching information organiser. Think about how you take for
granted the fact that you can just copy and paste a few tables of a
spreadsheet into your word processor.
All this convergence is driven by an increasing understanding of the
need for (and power of) standards. Standards that enable a large
variety of people to know what kind of information/tool they're working
with, how it will respond, and that they can be confident that the next
person will most probably also be able to understand. That's what
standards are about, partly.
OK. So you've got standards. So what? So you've got interoperability, that's what.
Interoperability between applications, documents, platforms, devices
and media types. Which is where I'd like to step in and introduce
myself…
Hello, my name is Martin, and I'm here to offer my services in
helping you uniformly represent information (heck, even knowledge)
across all of the above.
With Sharepoint V3 and Office 12
on their way as the factors that got me off my lazy ass to write this
post, I'd like to give you a glimpse into the future. It's not too far
away, really.
Imagine:
You open up a word processor, the blank page you see before you
automatically configured to your preference of layout, font style &
size, and colours. As you start typing, you talk to your device (hey,
it could be a PC, a phone/PDA whatever) and let it know that you're
busy creating sales literature for a new product your company is
launching. The document adapts, recognizing specific keywords in each
paragraph, and tagging the paragraph accordingly. As you type, you make
voice-notes, giving a few clues to the thinking behind each section.
With me?
OK, once you've finished typing your document, you look at the
collaboration pane on your screen, and notice that one of your team
members (who is responsible for all the technical specifications) is
also online. You instant-message her in video mode, quickly discuss the
requirements, and check your document in with her (actually, you hand
it to the collaboration system, it knows that she's the next
responsible person) and she starts working at adding in the required
diagrams and figures. While she's doing that, her word processor tags
the content she's adding as technical.
All the while, as the document is passing along the editing process,
it is being tracked by the version control agent, and stored in a
central database in the various forms it takes.
After your colleague finishes adding her content, she passes the
document back to you. You double-check it, and approve it for
publishing. And this is where it gets interesting…
As you hit the "publish" button, your document is stored in
published state in an organization-wide (and shareable with the world
if necessary) database. Thing is, it's not just a document, but a
compilation of text, images, graphs and tables (not forgetting the
audio & video), all tagged and readable by programs designed to
take content, interpret its specific purpose within context, and
represent it in a way which is meaningful to the context.
Welcome to the presentation layer
Imagine, if you will, that James in engineering is automatically
notified of the new document by the collaboration system. He needs to
produce a demonstration model of the product, and is only interested in
the drawings. As he opens up the document, the content is interpreted
by his user profile, and he gets a high-resolution blueprint view, with
the specification tables necessary to do his job.
Pete in marketing opens up the same document 15 minutes later; the
system knows that he prefers a slideshow view of new-product documents,
with the main selling points bulleted, and a few demonstration
photographs conveniently set up in a gallery.
When Sarah in new business development retrieves the document, she
sees projected sales figures and other relevant metrics highlighted,
without any of the technical stuff that James was so interested in.
All this translation and representation of content is powered by
what I'd like to refer to as the Presentation Layer. It consists of
technologies like XML, CSS, XSLT and CAML (Collaborative Application
Markup Language, it's pretty new). It's stuff that gets me really,
really excited when I think about what's possible, and it's the
technical area in which my professional efforts are going to be focused
in the next few years.
So there you go - that's my game, now keep the smirks for when you see people reading YOU magazine. Time to Rock 'n Roll!