Keith Ballinger just finished his presentation, and it was one of the best of the day (in my opinion).

It was on "Messaging and Web Services," and was quite entertaining. He's a good speaker with a good sense of humor.

His first app was a simple SOAP based project that basically moved heckles (yes, heckles) from a web form to a listener on another system. I thought it was brilliant. He's basically created an entire new market - Making it easier than ever for assholes to connect to their victims regardless of place and time.

That's what the internet is all about. That's my kind of application.

One highlight of the talk was when Dave Winer challenged Keith's perception of RPC. But, as Keith mentioned early on, there are many different definitions of RPC, and it's easy to disagree about RPC when two opposing interlocutors don't even agree on what the acronym means.

It got a bit heated for a minute with some strong words being exchanged, but cooled off after they (apparently) agreed that the argument was over a misunderstanding of terminology.

I was actually kind of scared. I thought Ted Neward was going to have to come in and regulate with Hair-Fu. Fortunately, it didn't come to that, and Keith finished his presentation on a peaceful note.

Dave's reaction was interesting, though. I might not agree with the guy all that often, but I have quite a bit of respect for his tenacity. He gets a lot of crap, and he keeps going.

In the end, it was a good talk for many reasons.