This is a reply to the person that pointed out the flip-side mentioned in
the article. Unfortunately I already deleted it. Here’s the flip-side he
quoted.
"There’s myopia comping from the other direction too. Scripters like to tout
order-of-magnitude productivity gains but, as Ward points out, “they don’t
know enough about how complexity leaks into business systems, so even if
your language is 4x more productive, it only buys you another year before
disaster strikes.”
What’s the basis for assuming that people who like scripting languages don’t
know about the complexities of business systems? For many of us, scripting
is something we like to do when we can, but we spend significant amounts of
time coding in Java and other languages at the request of our employers. We
are VERY familiar with things like database access, transactions, caching
and all the other concepts that play into what Martin Fowler terms
“Enterprise Applications”.
···
-----Original Message-----
From: JamesBritt [mailto:james@jamesbritt.com]
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 10:14 PM
To: ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
Subject: Interesting quote …
from Ward Cunningham, via Jon Udell [0]:
And here we run into a major disconnect. To the enterprise, scripted
solutions look like one-offs, not strategic systems designed to high
standards of quality and able to evolve along with the business.
What the enterprise folks don’t get is that scripted systems can be
engineered to meet these requirements. So they lean toward C++ and
Java, and then rely on powerful integrated development environments,
like Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA, to make fluid refactoring possible.
These tools can work very well. “They’re complicated,” observes
Ward, “and you have to learn how to work them – but boy, when you
do, they make those languages start to feel like scripting languages.”
[0] http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/02/13/07stratdev_1.html
James Britt
WARNING: All e-mail sent to and from this address will be received or
otherwise recorded by the A.G. Edwards corporate e-mail system and is
subject to archival, monitoring or review by, and/or disclosure to,
someone other than the recipient.
This is a reply to the person that pointed out the flip-side mentioned in
the article. Unfortunately I already deleted it. Here’s the flip-side he
quoted.
"There’s myopia comping from the other direction too. Scripters like to tout
order-of-magnitude productivity gains but, as Ward points out, “they don’t
know enough about how complexity leaks into business systems, so even if
your language is 4x more productive, it only buys you another year before
disaster strikes.”
What’s the basis for assuming that people who like scripting languages don’t
know about the complexities of business systems? For many of us, scripting
is something we like to do when we can, but we spend significant amounts of
time coding in Java and other languages at the request of our employers. We
are VERY familiar with things like database access, transactions, caching
and all the other concepts that play into what Martin Fowler terms
“Enterprise Applications”.
I’m the one that pointed out the flip side. Here’s my response.
The basis for assuming that people who like scripting languages don’t know about
the complexities of business systems is that real N-tier business systems
are generally not written in scripting languages, so those only versed in
scripting languages are not exposed to the heavy complexities that play a part
in applications of this type. We’re not just talking about database access,
transactions, caching,(which are in my opinion the simpler mechanics of business
systems). Fowler is talking more about the interactions of large N-tier systems
that have complex and sometimes difficult-to-comprehend interactions with other
systems of equal or greater complexity and the people-driven business logic that
they embody. As you point out, generalizations of this nature are dangerous,
there are always those that don’t fit the mold, for instance those that use
scripting languages, but are quite conversant with business system complexity
because they design/implement these sorts of programs everyday, but I believe
···
On Wed, 19 Feb 2003 06:20:28 +0900 “Volkmann, Mark” Mark.Volkmann@AGEDWARDS.com wrote:
from my experience that this viewpoint, on the whole, is a valid one.
-----Original Message-----
From: JamesBritt [mailto:james@jamesbritt.com]
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 10:14 PM
To: ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
Subject: Interesting quote …
from Ward Cunningham, via Jon Udell [0]:
And here we run into a major disconnect. To the enterprise, scripted
solutions look like one-offs, not strategic systems designed to high
standards of quality and able to evolve along with the business.
What the enterprise folks don’t get is that scripted systems can be
engineered to meet these requirements. So they lean toward C++ and
Java, and then rely on powerful integrated development environments,
like Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA, to make fluid refactoring possible.
These tools can work very well. “They’re complicated,” observes
Ward, “and you have to learn how to work them – but boy, when you
do, they make those languages start to feel like scripting languages.”
[0] http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/02/13/07stratdev_1.html
James Britt
****** WARNING: All e-mail sent to and from this address will be received or
otherwise recorded by the A.G. Edwards corporate e-mail system and is
subject to archival, monitoring or review by, and/or disclosure to,
someone other than the recipient.
–
Daniel P. Zepeda