Re: Installing a web change (was: importing a rpg orsqlrpg)

> From: Mark Phippard
>
> It must be difficult being so brilliant and surrounded by such
> knuckle-dragging incompetence.  Let's see, in just the past few weeks you
> have declared ...
>
> 1)  The designers of SWT to be a bunch of idiots.
>
> 2)  The designers of WebFacing are idiots.
>
> 3)  The designers of J2EE are idiots.
>
> 4)  I am an idiot and I think Buck was one too for a while.
>
> 5)  Numerous people on the midrange-l list are idiots.
>
> On behalf of us all, thanks for showing us the light.  When you become
> Emperor please show some pity on us all.

The truth is that I have gone out of my way to say that SWT is a brilliant
concept, but that parts of its execution are flawed, such as its lack of
adherence to OO programming conventions - conventions you hold so dear.  I
have said that WDSc is a great product, but that WebFacing has some serious
architectural issues (some of which they agree with, by the way).  I have
always held that servlets and JSP are a great concept, but that EJBs are
over-architected and EAR/WAR is a poor maintenance model.

Do you see the pattern here?  Good design: I applaud.  Bad design: I
criticize, offering alternatives.  This is called constructive criticism.
As I pointed out in my last article on MCPress, though, there seems to be a
growing number of people in our industry who can't handle this sort of
criticism.  Any inkling they might be wrong is seen as a personal attack.

It's too bad.  This sort of attitude means the checks and balances are going
out of our industry.

See, egos have always been part of the equation in programming.  It's not a
science; in many ways it's an art, and many of the best artists have huge
egos.  Back in the day, we had some regular knock-down, drag-out brawls over
design issues.  Nothing was sacred, there were no "standards", and so design
issues were always up for grabs.  People would storm out of meetings, doors
would be slammed, curses muttered.  We'd take a break, stoke up on coffee
and donuts, and go at it again.  Eventually, agreement, sometimes grudging,
would be reached, and the product would be inevitably be better because of
it.

Today, the design process is overrun by prima donnas who puff themselves up
and point at "standards" like J2EE as a justification for their design, and
who brook no debate of their decisions.  I hate to tell them, but even J2EE
is not a standard - it is a convention, and as such should be subject to
review.  You can choose to follow it or not, and frankly, you need just as
good a justification to follow it as you do to not follow it.  Blind
adherence to J2EE is as bad as blind adherence to, oh, Hungarian notation
for variable naming.

Anyway, since this has descended from architecture to philosophy, it seems a
likely point to put it to bed.  You may have some counterpoints, Mark, feel
free to fire away.  But I'm pretty done here.  It may just be that I'm
getting old, but it sure seems that there are a lot of people these days who
point to OTHER people's "standards" as justification for their decisions.
And that is a sure sign that innovation is on a downhill trend.

Joe