I attended a couple technical seminars today. One was pitching what’s basically a rapid application development platform – basically a canned, integrated set of solutions for common enterprise application problems. Like VB is to languages, so this was to applications. The other was on service oriented architecture: pros, cons, directions.
On the surface, I have to admit I’m technically snobbish enough to get a little irate at one can see cosmetically. Blah blah, our product can do anything, blah blah, service oriented architecture will butter your bread.
However, that attitude stems from arriving at the seminar with an attitude of “make me have to believe you”. Another attitude I find much more useful is to ask “why does he think that?”. “Because he’s stupid” is not an acceptable answer. At worst, “he fell into a trap that I know is a trap because I’ve seen that trap up close myself before”. Even if you don’t agree at the superficial level, you can turn up some interesting things.
For instance, in the product seminar, I think the product is being pitched as more than it cna really do. However, the way the product is being pitched, and hammering home the claim that Java and .NET projects would never be as productive as with this tool made me think: it’s true in a way. As our application needs get more advanced, our tools aren’t advancing as fast. Sure, the main programming languages advance… but since when was the human response to increasing adversity to concentrate on improving our general capabilities? We specialize, and develop tools that are really good for a narrow problem space. And this, I think, is the brilliant vision of the product I got from the product seminar. Sure you could do it in Java or .NET. But it’s like building a house by learning carpenty first to make the boards, then smithing to make the hammers and nails, then architecture to design it… That company realized there was a gap: on the one end, we have very complex goals; on the other end, we have tools, but they address such a basic complexity level (hammers and nails) leaving a big gap that still has to be addressed (architecture).
Wow, that was longer than I thought it would take to say. At any rate, I’m glad I went (and not only because the breakfast was good!).
