Well that was fun! The LibraryLookup project seems to be a success. I think Phil Windley summed it up best: the power of the Internet can be had in bits and pieces, a few scripts at a time.
In his column this week, InfoWorld's CTO Chad Dickerson talked about Hal Varian's concept of recombinant growth:
Recombinant growth refers to reassembling existing technologies into something novel, innovative, and ultimately greater than the sum of its parts.
If we can achieve such extraordinary effects more or less by accident, just think what could be accomplished if we designed for recombinant growth? Some, of course, argue that there are no accidents, and that REST is such a design. I go back and forth on that deeply confusing issue. But today, I wouldn't disagree.
Former URL: http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2002/12/12.html#a537