Skip to main content

Face to face

Last week we had a three day Face to Face meeting of the group working on the SOA Reference Architecture.

On the whole it was a very civilized affair, no voices were heard raised in anger. Although some pretty hard decisions and comments went down.

Personally, I think that, if we can keep the momentum going, this architecture is going to be one that we are proud of.

Of particular interest to me is making sure that human actions are properly represented. This is not yet another IT architecture.

To do this, I think that you need to embrace the fact that the overwhelming majority of action will be directed by people, at people, and involving people.

On a technical note, I am pretty convinced that we need to incorporate norms and institutions. A norm is just a rule about how people should behave and what the meaning of that behavior is. An institution is just a fancy name for a social structure -- it can include everything from a fishing club, a company, through to the US government as defined by the constitution.

Architecturally, that just means that concepts such as stakeholders, roles, rights, responsibilities are properly identified. The security folk like that too, because it gives the needed anchor for trusted systems.

Popular posts from this blog

Comments Should be Meaningless

This is something of a counterintuitive idea: Comments should be meaningless What, I hear you ask, are you talking about? Comments should communicate to the reader! At least that is the received conventional wisdom handed does over the last few centuries (decades at least). Well, certainly, if you are programming in Assembler, or C, then yes, comments should convey meaning because the programming language cannot So, conversely, as a comment on the programming language itself, anytime the programmer feels the imperative to write a meaningful comment it is because the language is not able to convey the intent of the programmer. I have already noticed that I write far fewer comments in my Java programs than in my C programs.  That is because Java is able to capture more of my meaning and comments would be superfluous. So, if a language were able to capture all of my intentions, I would never need to write a comment. Hence the title of this blog.

Giving the customers what they want

I do not believe that I am an elitist , but at the same time, I wonder about that phrase. To me, it implies an abdication of responsibility. Which is better: to give the customer what he asks for or to solve the real problem? Here is what I mean. Occasionally, someone asks me for some tool/gadget/software program that strikes me as not really addressing the problem. This can be for any number of reasons; the customer has an immediate pain point and wants to address the specific requirement, the customer is already fixated on the technology and want that solution, the customer has been told that the answer is SOAP (and what was the question?). As a professional, that puts me in a dilemma: either I end up arguing with the customer or I hold my nose and give him what he so plainly wants even if I think that it is not the right answer. Given my temperament, it means that I usually end up contradicting the client and thereby losing the deal. Today I ended up doing that (I think, it may be

Minimum Viable Product

When was the last time you complained about the food in a restaurant? I thought so. Most people will complain if they are offended by the quality or service; but if the food and/or service is just underwhelming then they won't complain, they will simply not return to the restaurant. The same applies to software products, or to products of any kind. You will only get negative feedback from customers if they care enough to make the effort. In the meantime you are both losing out on opportunities and failing your core professional obligation. Minimum Viable Product speaks to a desire to make your customers design your product for you. But, to me, it represents a combination of an implicit insult and negligence. The insult is implicit in the term minimum. The image is one of laziness and contempt: just throw some mud on the wall and see if it sticks. Who cares about whether it meets a real need, or whether the customer is actually served. The negligence is more subtle but, in the end,