Do we sometimes create more problems for ourselves when we dont have to. Over the years I have seen that there has been no ground breaking innovation in how we program. The problem has only gotten worse.
We keep adding framework after framework. Layer after layer. At one side there are some simpler languages like C and Ruby. Then on the complete other spectrum we have languages like Java and .NET ( C# for example)
Java came out in 1996 timeframe and it was a new wave of programming. Not much has happened since then. Vendors introduced this confusing architecture called SOA which in 90 percent of the cases is Simply Over Architecture( SOA).
Then there are tools like Eclipse and Visual Studio. We speak of complicated things like collections, generics and Linq and Hibernate.Most of these are questionable frameworks. Well collections may be not.
I have worked extensively in both the Java and the .NET stack and its sad to say that even after 11 years , we have made no significant progress in how we perceive programming.
Software industry is very predictable.
First there are vendors like Microsoft and Sun and IBM etc whose sole purpose in life is to inculcate fear and create a need when absolutely no need exisits. For the last three to four years all the CEO and CTO’s are drinking the SOA and Agile cool aid.
Then there are thought leaders whose sole job is to create fear too, write books and take us to a programming model that we for ourselves have never created. Thanks to gang of four for creating a never ending confusion of Patterns. If they did not write that book, I think life would have been much simpler.
Take the patterns and practices group in Microsoft. These folks basically create the next best framework that adds no serious value to enterprise software. It does make it simpler to some extent but its not an easy thing to use. For those experienced in any enterprise library from Microsoft, its no simple framework.
Same appears to be the problem in the Java world. Do we really need Entity Beans CMP? I can count on my finger tips that number of entity beans i have written in the last 10 years. Oh wait, I dont have to count, I never had a need to write one.
Why did we invent the wsdl?It uses XML. XML based communication is the least efficient way to transmit text for a webservice.Whatever happened to the good old binary format Now we tell hackers exactly what the password is or the ss no is as its in clear text.
Take an example of the new .NET 3.0 framework. First we had remoting, then webservices and now we have WCF /indigo. Create need when there is none. There is something called Jini in Java world that somehow did not see the light at the end of the tunnel.
By the time you would have even figure out what these mean , they will be out with the next set of acronyms. If all you are doing is showind data from the database in a fancy UI why not make life easy.
Take a look at WXF stack and you will see what i mean.. The whole premise of WXF stack is confusion.
Oh innovators where are you? You sure are not in Google , Microsoft , IBM and Sun. While they are busy adding more confusion to the already messed up programming models there must that only person who is thinking about the problem in a much sim
Make it simple, make it work.
