Don't like the script? You need your application to provide additional functionality? So, edit it.

While users sometimes describe Frontier as difficult to learn, they're more often referring to the odd-yet-intriguing way that UserLand supports its products. While online documentation is relatively copious, the company hasn't assembled its materials with as much care as one would like. Quite explicitly, they've chosen innovation and speed-to-market over conventional packaging. You can explore Frontier's documentation online at http://frontier.userland.com.

On the other hand, the Frontier development community is unusually tight and cooperative towards each other and newbies. Questions are answered promptly by anyone who knows, and many individuals will go out of their way to help. While Frontier is commercial software, UserLand often releases large portions of source code to their community. As a result, they've reaped much of the spirit of support cooperation that marks the open source movement.

Don't be misled. By any measure, especially in comparison to IBM and Lotus, UserLand is tiny. But Dave Winer and his team have demonstrated a passionate commitment to design, implementation, and support for twelve years (longer if you track back to his outliner products.) UserLand's track record is trustworthy.

Frontier, Domino and the future of the Web
As I mentioned earlier, Dave Winer authored the XML-RPC protocol specification and co-authored its successor, SOAP. Both Frontier and Manila take full advantage of both protocols.

XML-RPC was (and remains) a simple but effective way to transmit methods and data across the HTTP wire, using XML to serialize data. SOAP reduces the verbosity of XML-RPC, adds support for data typing, and enables firewalls to screen HTTP headers so that only the good stuff gets through. Microsoft has made a strategic commitment to SOAP for its .NET vision.

IBM and Lotus have made a similar commitment. Of equal importance, Lotus is mapping everything mappable within Domino and Notes to open XML data structures. Let's consider what this means for your use of Frontier and Manila alongside Domino and Notes.

Dave Winer's vision for Frontier is to make it the best possible platform (with the slickest tools) for supporting "writing" to the Web. This includes everything from personal correspondence to weblogs to collaborative publishing of a sophisticated order. In no way does he expect to replace email products, groupware, or high-end content management systems. With XML and especially SOAP, why bother? That's far from a rhetorical question, but it goes to the heart of both.

XML and SOAP, while still in their childhood, will inevitably create an environment in which users can plug-and-play the best-of-breed tools into their core environments, because the data created by those tools can be wrapped and handed off to other tools around the network (understanding "network" here to mean both intranet and Internet). Really, that environment is already here. It just isn't polished yet. Microsoft's commitment to .NET, which embodies this direction, is the most compelling possible acknowledgment that the world has changed.