[Info-vax] Seasons Greetings

[Arne Vajhøj]

Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article <495c3477$0$90271$14726298 at news.sunsite.dk>,
> 	Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> writes:
>> Main, Kerry wrote:
>>> Yep, I still maintain there is going to be a return to the basics as
>>> Companies can no longer afford grandiose SOA / "latest rip-n-replace
>>> craze of the month" distributed programming strategy developed by the
>>> analyst / university / whoever theorists.
>> Companies can not afford not to do SOA. It is pretty expensive not
>> to reuse.
> 
> And you can't reuse without SOA?  I thought "re-use" was the Ada buzzword,
> not the SOA buzzword.

Reuse is a SOA buzzword.

Just at a service level instead of a code level.

>> SOA is most definitely not about replacing systems. You could argue
>> that SOA is about not replacing systems.
> 
> Well, when you re-write all your COBOL in Java, sure sounds like replacing
> to me.

It is.

But since that would not have anything to do with SOA (in itself), then
it is not particular relevant.

>> Distributed environments is a reality today. And it is not going
>> to go away tomorrow.
> 
> Let's see, I still have the newspaper article with my picture in it when
> the place I was working went to "Distributed data Processing".  That was
> 1981.  Since then, they have gone centralized, gone back to distributed,
> gone back to centralized and are now back distributed.  May not go away,
> but it will definitely change.

I think you are reading the term "distributed environment" different
than it was intended.

Practically no companies today have all their stuff on a single system.

There are very good reasons not have file servers, intranet web server,
internet web server, database, mail server, ERP system, CRM system
etc.etc. running on a single system.

And that is not likely to change for a long time. IT gets more
complex over time not less complex.

>> SOA is not a university thing. They still do OCAML, Haskell and
>> similar - SOA is practical thing.
> 
> Well, I recently visited another education site I used to work at.  We
> use Banner where I am today (it replaced in house applications on an
> IBM mainframe).  I asked if they used Banner.  I found the answer to be
> rather interesting as it was 180 degrees away from my current employer.
> They looked at Banner and chose not to for exactly the reasons I have
> a;ways been against any of these canned programs.  No flexibility.  Where
> I am now they shove a package at you and tell you to change the way you
> do things to match the programs capabilities.  Now that's what I call
> user friendly.  This former locations writes applications based on user
> defined requirements.  Care to bet which one is paying more for their
> system and its maintenance?  Oh yeah, at my current location, since
> dumping their locally written systems in favor of canned packages the
> programming staff has more than tripled.  Tell me again how all this
> new stuff is more economical.

Having one system doing X is usually cheaper than having two
systems doing X.

>> Typical SOA advocates have 10-25 years of experience.
> 
> Somehow, I find that very hard to believe.

It is easy to verify by checking out the people writing
about it.

>>> http://tinyurl.com/3crd5o
>>> "Remember Cobol? If You Don't, Get Reacquainted"
>>>
>>> Extract :
>>> "In spite of its reputation, Cobol remains a resilient force in IT. Dale
>>> Vecchio, research director at Gartner Inc., says there are roughly 180
>>> billion lines of Cobol worldwide. This isn't surprising, given that Cobol
>>> has been around for more than 40 years. What is surprising is Gartner's
>>> comment in a February research note stating that 15% of all new application
>>> functionality through 2005 will be in Cobol."
>> Not surprising.
>>
>> If the new features is <X% of the total app, then it does not make
>> any sense to rewrite the entire app in a new language to add the
>> new functionality.
>  
> And if the old, much simpler language can do the job, it really doesn't
> make sense to use newer, more complicated technology simply because it
> is newer.

"can do the job" is not enough - it has to be "can do the job cheapest".

Arne