Magic

On Sat, May 17, 2003 at 01:50:06PM -0400, Newcomer, Eric wrote:
> Let's please forget about REST, the Semantic Web, and the other academic exercises and focus on solving problems for business.  

Just because you don't understand it, please don't denigrate it.

The Web generates more business value every hour of every day, than
SOA-style systems (combined) ever have or ever will.  Unconstrained
interfaces are simply not suitable for the Internet.  Period.  End of
story.  The empiricial evidence backs me up on this too.  The fact that
lots of otherwise intelligent people (whose only mistake is they just
haven't done their homework on Internet scale systems) don't understand
that, does not all of a sudden make it so.

I *understand* that the Web looks like some trivial and cutesy
human-driven system that enables crude UIs to be deployed in a thin-
client fashion.  6 years ago, I thought the same thing too, and was a
big fan of SOAs.  But it is *SO* much more, and I *WISH* people would
just try to make a *SMALL* effort to understand that without getting all
defensive and nervous about the prospect that they're mistaken; heck,
if you are wrong, you're in good company 8-)  When I started studying
the Web in 96/97, I wasn't expecting to learn what the Web was; I was
just trying to find out what made it so successful so that I could
incorporate that into my work (with CORBA, at the time).  I was as
surprised as anybody to learn what I did; that not only did it have some
neat things to offer CORBA, it removed the need for CORBA altogether.  I
remember being absolutely stunned for about a week in May of '98 after a
talk with Roy in which I finally "got it"; I hardly slept.

Anyhow, excuse me for venting.  I just couldn't let that tripe pass by
without responding.

*PLEASE*, everyone, try to make an effort to understand it before you
dismiss it.  If you understand it, but still want to dismiss it, then
go nuts. 8-)

MB

Received on Saturday, 17 May 2003 14:46:18 UTC