Having published several blog entries at SDN over a certain period of time, it's a good time to look back and tell what's really going on with SDN.
Well, SDN is a sort of cool platform for SAP-related stuff. Period. Fortunately not only for proprietary SAP stuff (coming from the direction of computer sciences, the old SAP system architecture in pre-NetWeaver ages seemed more stale to me, sorry, but this is my personal opinion). What I liked about SDN very much from the beginning was not only the technical foundation. Quite clean and straight-forward. It was even more the human factor, the involvement and commitment of several people from SDN making it an experience "living" with SDN.
Then, I began promoting one article of mine, Design Patterns: Boondoggle or State-of-the-Art? in an external blog. The reactions to my personal promotion seemed surprising to me. Not that I was criticised for the content I delivered. Nor that my command of English was criticised (with which I could live as a native German speaker). It was the general set-up of SDN being in the line of fire. It's not my words, what follows!
Please consider thinking about those off-track-comments from other people, I firstly recognized as overcast. But after reflecting them, my opinion changed somewhat, as the community rules the nets&webs, and SDN is/must be kind of a net or web. This rule may be seen as good or it may be seen as bad, it is coming from the masses, somehow.
First comment from Peter Monsson on Sunday, November 21, 2004:
"iView is not compatible with your browser, operating system or device. Contact your system administrator" What the Heck? Why is it still today impossible to view a piece of text on caffeine with your choice of browser?
The iView thing is something one could say: "Can't give a hug to anyone, some must live without love as there is no ultra-compatibility out there and that cannot be our aim!" (non-ironically). But the next comment knocked it out, coming from Dennis Atkins on Thursday, December 02, 2004:
"Your page appears wacky in my browser also. And why on earth are you establishing a https connection for a blog entry? What's up with that? -1 for having a lame site."
To say it clearly: neither does this reflect my opinion nor I am submitting to the above statement. Especially the -1 points for my weblog entry, alone for being linked with a https-URL.
After omitting further comments to the above statements, it is my need making a short suggestion. At a blogging site I don't want to name here as it could be in competition with SDN (although many of you should know it, anyway), there is a really nice feature for bloggers. Have a look at the following pictures:
This picture shows the HTML editor, which is also existent at SDN. The WYSIWYG-composer comparable to the editor provided with SDN formerly is not shown (you see the tab in the picture) but is as good .
The next screenshot makes clear what the preview function is about:
Without having to wait for any browser reaction, the editor can easily call a preview of his draft work as shown above. No waiting, just the preview without fluff. I love this.
Maybe there is still some room for improvements at SDN, although SDN really seems a very innovative place to me!
