Finally! Fargo is an online tool for writing in outlines to a WordPress blog.
Very good. Outlining has been underestimated as a writing tool – but there was barely any way to edit content without a desktop software – like OmniOutliner – this way. I was using Userland Software (Frontier with Manila – later Radio) for blogging … but switched to WordPress a while ago. Dave Winer continued the core software with the OPML Editor – and has begun to mix it with web technologies.
The stuff Dave Winer usually is working on isn’t always usable by everyone. But it is original and nerdy. And it always is an inspiring playground. He writes software for himself. But it does things that others like also. Like outlining.
Update June 2014
Dave Winer talked about the mechanics of change in the web at the State of the Net conference in Trieste last week.
I am following Dave’s work since 1996. He is a developer. He tends to say he is a software developer, but that doesn’t really explain it well. He does not develop software — I’d say he develops through software.
I am very glad to hear that his former employee Brent Simmons wants to resurrect Frontier. Frontier was an application invented by Dave in the early 1990ies that integrated a database with a scripting language in a way that allowed to be creative with code (and later the web). It was not a tool accessible for an average user, but nevertheless it took away a lot of complexity made you able to solve complex problems with it yourself.
Frontier allowed to create a completely own understanding of what you regard as data and text and work the web with it. You could take anything from anywhere to anything with it and transform it into what ever you wanted… and keep a record of everything along the way. One could to this today, but it became much harder. Too hard. Looking forward to a new version.
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