 | The sun rises over Philadelphia in 1776, and you are there
Theodore Shrader (tshrader@us.ibm.com)
Editor-in-Chief, developerWorks journal, IBM
May 8, 2002 You have the opportunity to observe history in the making. No, you haven't crossed the event horizon of some mystical celestial unknown. You have just hopped into your friendly neighborhood parallel universe. Instead of the horse and buggy bringing delegates together, signers of the Declaration of Independence can further their deliberations and take advantage of a new technology, LibertyNet, which connects rural and urban delegates from across the thirteen colonies. Remarkably, LibertyNet mirrors our modern-day Internet. (Benjamin Franklin's inventive genius strikes again -- all from just a half-legible design on a cocktail napkin and a little seed money from that angel with deep pockets, John Hancock.)
The colonists are still fuming over the Stamp Act, Port Act, and a gaggle of other Acts and injustices. After much soul searching and many late-night Robocode tournaments, the delegates from each colony finally decide that they cannot solve their colonies' problems with a simple reboot or by reassigning defects to another component. The delegates must take steps to formally declare their independence to an open standards-based government. Distances are vast and delegates unknown (some have bad teeth and are not pleasing to gaze upon). Just how can they leverage modern technologies to further their remote or local deliberations? (Truth be known, many delegates advocate debating from afar. It would, at least, avoid raising the ire of Samuel Adams and having him smash bottles or fling cue balls in another tavern brawl.)
The delegates to the Philadelphia convention face a problem similar to one we confront today: no, not how to purchase the cheapest transatlantic cruise tickets, but how can colonists from the northeast find or conduct business in the south to buy molasses or tax-free tea? The colonists' software and business models are as different as their backgrounds. How can the delegates easily discern their patriot leaders from the proliferation of information and animated Tory ads on LibertyNet? For example, Samuel Adams wants to map out the shortest distance to the latest Sons of Liberty meeting, as well as determine the auction price for barley. (Yes, he really was a maltster. You can believe some of the stuff you see on beer bottles.)
Fortunately, Web services technology bridges the distances. In advance, the delegates post information about themselves and their business attributes in a UDDI registry. Next, Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, writes a small Java app (spell checking comments in the code, of course), runs a few unit tests, and uses his program to query the UDDI registry and locate all of the signers or potential signers up and down the eastern seaboard, from Massachusetts to Georgia.
Jefferson also specifies criteria, including a font for signatures, and scours the UDDI registry for delegates matching his signing specifications. Delegates post their "business" information in the UDDI registry, with most of them advertising reasonable fonts and respectable point sizes (10 or 12). There's always the exception -- John Hancock swaggers in with 72 point. If the HTML <blink> tag were available back then, Hancock would certainly take advantage of it and make even the outspoken Patrick Henry blush.
The delegates love these new-fangled technologies. Through modern recovery techniques, we can take a glimpse at how John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin utilize the modern marvel of Internet messaging over LibertyNet:
John r u there?
Ben sec
Ben k
John I'm reading over Tom's latest draft wearing my bathrobe. It's blue today.
Ben That's a little more information than I need to know.
John The entire document SHOULD BE IN ALL CAPS and the
mailto address should be jhancock@nostampact.org.
Ben We already talked about that.
John We must be unanimous. There must be no pulling different ways.
We must all hang together.
Ben Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly
we will all hang separately.
John You are a ray of sunshine in my life.
Ben Anytime. c u l8tr
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When the delegates decide on face-to-face deliberations, wireless technology helps streamline the discussions. From inside the conference hall, the delegates crowd around John Adams' wireless PDA and send an SMS message to the cell phone of fellow delegate (and John's second cousin) Samuel Adams. The message tells him that taxation without representation is the debate, not whether he should order a tall or grande decaf Café Mocha from the coffee kiosk. Delicately, they invite him to rejoin the proceedings whenever he can take a moment from his "busy" schedule.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence risked all for liberty and achieved so much with the tools of their day. Just think of what more they could have accomplished with Bluetooth technology and a few good parsers.
About the author
Theodore Shrader helms the IBM developerWorks journal as Editor-in-Chief. He relishes board games and a good game of Hearts. Although he is a history buff, he is overjoyed at living in a post-powdered wig and post-invention-of-the-toothbrush era. And yes, English Teatime remains his favorite, although he still forgets and brews Earl Grey from time to time. (Of course, the only real tea is iced tea, but you knew that. :-) )
You can contact him at tshrader@us.ibm.com.
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