[Twisted-Python] Enterprise, do you copy?

Kevin Turner acapnotic at twistedmatrix.com
Thu Nov 1 12:34:36 MST 2001


On Thu, Nov 01, 2001 at 11:33:35AM -0600, Glyph Lefkowitz wrote:
> [snip description of mouse-blood-thirsty research scientists]
[...]
> We aim to be there one day, but let me give you a brief description of 
> why we're not yet... 
[snipped]

> I think that your best bet in this particular situation is to befriend 
> the Perl camp.
[...]
> Those who are pushing for JDeveloper are beyond hope;
[...]
> All of these tasks involve a degree of hacking proficiency above and 
> beyond that required to go through a JDeveloper wizard and click on 
> "-YES-! ENTERPRISE! WEB! WOOD GLUE!"

Well, let me clarify a little how they arrived at the current position.
Dad "retired" from the Oracle arena some years back, when the web hadn't
*quite* taken over the world yet.  Now he's back in a situation where
he has an Oracle database and a need to make interfaces so people can
work with this data, and make it otherwise accessable.  (Preferrably
interfaces which require zero maintance on the client machine.)  Of
course, this has people saying "Uhh... internet."

So he goes to consult the Oracle, and the voice of Larry Ellison speaks
to him: "Internet?  Enterprise internet web internet.  Java!" and Dad
comes away thinking, "Oh, so that's how people do Oracle these days."

And yeah, there's a strong sense that "creating database interfaces
shouldn't require this much *code*, why hasn't anyone else made it as
easy as Filemaker has? (too bad there are a host of other disadvantages
to developing for Filemaker)", and I know that nothing Twisted currently
has is going to be really satisfying in that respect; that's what makes
Oracle JDeveloper and its wizardly companions look appealing.

But he also knows that in all likelyhood, someone will have to edit
some of this wizard-generated code someday, and he's quite concerned
that they be able to do so without having them shipped down to the
Neurology lab afterwards.  If my understanding of the environment is
accurate, at least a fair share of the people working on the interfaces
are past the "ENTERPRISE! WEB!  WOOD GLUE!" stage, so I would think that
code maintaniablitity is probably going to be at least as important as
clickability.

Nobody there currently knows Java, the only argument for it is "it's
what Oracle uses today, so if we want to work with Oracle products, this
is what we do."

> We don't have big piles of money to wow them with flashy demos, and we
> don't have any existing "customers" who use the "product" in the way
> that they expect to.
[...]
> "Enterprise" (relational storage) is still in the prototyping phase,
> and there are no applications yet that use it.

There's a relatively low PHB presence here, so while flashy demos would
help, it's not scrictly necessary -- persuasive practical arguments
could be effective.  However, the second issue -- the lack of maturity
and customer base -- is certain to be a killer.

Well, I had to ask.  Thank you for your honest appraisal.

"In-dread-of-being-subjected-to-a-"I'm-learning-java-and-think-it's-stupid"-rant-over-Thankgiving-dinner"-ly yours,

 Kevin

-- 
The moon is waning gibbous, 99.9% illuminated, 15.0 days old.





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