Next year, this website will be 15 years old, the domain name 13. Shade will be 12, Jargon 11, the name creative abstractions 10. Some people say the world will end in 2012. Well, for this website, as it currently exists, it ends in 2010.
All my sites started off as plain HTML, then moved to a collection of CGI scripts, those scripts eventually evolved into Webtoo Websight, which has since been rewritten several times. In 2010, I intend to rewrite it again.
In Perl 6.
Yes, you heard me. Perl 6. I had been planning to write version 5-½ in Perl 5 using Moose, but I've decided that it's not worth two rewrites, so I'm skipping 5-½ and going straight for Webtoo Websight 6. I will be using Rakudo, Blizkost and Web.pm as the foundations. I'll be waiting until at least April when Rakudo Star will be released.
There will no longer be the logical divide between the various sections of this website. Scattered Thoughts, Shade, Jargon and Scrawl will become as one. The way that data is organized and stored will change. The new indexes will be far more flexible and will use special database-like caches.
Imagine a world where individual concepts can be viewed in different ways. You are reading a jargon comic, with Bob the Cat getting into politics. Instead of just a button saying "next strip", there are a few options: "next jargon strip", "next strip featuring Bob", "list of articles about politics", etc. Now also imagine the strip talked about the Libertarian Party. An information box offers links to the official homepage of the Libertarian Party, The Advocates for Self Government, and the Wikipedia article on Libertarianism.
The new indexes will have filtering capabilities, and by default will show all items that aren't flagged with mature content. Don't worry for those of you who want it, you'll be able to change your default view to display all content, including the naughty stuff.
Expect the content to begin to change as well. I intend to continue with my political discussions, but also return to some of the humour that once was my calling card. I want to ensure a more mature theme (/sw/), without losing the youthful naughtiness (/jb/) and with the same level of utter randomness (/b/). I plan to have integration with twitter and facebook so that status updates propagate to other sites.
I'm not sure how long it will take me to write Webtoo Websight 6, as I'll be working on it strictly in my spare time (which these days isn't very much) so don't expect to see it too soon. But do expect to see it.
So, 2010 marks the end of creative abstractions as it currently exists, and marks the beginning of something new. Something different. From the ashes of this site shall rise the twilight pheonix, to stand guard at the gates of the asylum until her sister can arrive to lead the armies of insanity to victory over the enemies of freedom.