Google Wave - Don't Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

I'm a parent to three wonderful and sometimes wonderfully frustrating children. Each of them has gone through that stage where they see something they like and believe they need to cram as much as they can in their mouth at once. You parents out there know this bit, their eyes bug out as they realise that they can't move their jaws because they're crammed to overflowing. What usually results is a huge mess and tears.

That's the same sort of thing I'm seeing with the "Google Wave is to complicated to get!" type claims being tweeted and blogged about. People have rushed in, cramming as much as they can in as little time as possible, and then when the inevitable mess occures, they declare that Wave is all too complicated and won't be a success.

To them I say the same thing I say to my kids. Don't bite off more than you can chew.

The World of Wave isn't some monolithic entity that demands that you understand all before being allowed into the secret club. Take me for instance, I do not pretend to understand the intracacies of Operational Transformations, and yet I am still forging ahead with building openausbot and learning how to setup and operate the WRS. Because I can understand those areas, without the need to understand the underlying magic that allows for the WRS and Robots to work.

With every new technology there is a learning curve. For users, it's going to be getting used to the new "real time" way of communicating and collaborating. For developers it depends on the area they are interested in. Robot and Gadget writers are getting their heads around the Wave API (which is a little bit of a moving target at the moment, but that's understandable this early in the game). Server and Client writers have probably the steepest learning curve at the moment, but they are getting there.

I think I'm starting to ramble so I'll just bring it back to my original point. If you think the Wave is too big to chew on, break it down, small bites means less chance of choking.