Rick W notes:
>Marketroids have brainwashed management.
With an eye-dropper, perhaps? Sorry to play this record again, but a
management culture that excludes expertise - that says "there are no
technical decisions, only business decisions" - will repeat these mistakes.
That said ... to say "Java is the problem" (or whatever) is to ignore the
role of discipline. It's possible to write good apps in Java, and it's even
possible to do so in Windows (sorry for the heresy, but I know of at least
one!). We're also talking about systems and environments designed to
spoon-feed under-educated developers and damn the consequences.
Here's a left-field question: to what extent to accounting practices
encourage bad software? Balance sheets look better with lower salary and
higher capex; so we hire the cheapest developers we can find, and buy the
most expensive app server we can find; and end up with bad development...
Richard
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Welykochy [mailto:rick@praxis.com.au]
Sent: Tuesday, 28 August 2001 19:10
To: Michael Skeggs
Cc: Link Institute
Subject: Re: [LINK] $1B (US) wasted on bloated Java servers.
Michael Skeggs wrote:
> It is a very simple equation:
>
> clueless consultant + inapropriate faith in vendor = massive over
> specification.
Indeed.
> It gets really out of hand when everyone doing the requirements expects
> growth, and at each stage they each add a 'little' just in case growth is
> higher than expected. I have had stand up fights with people who assured
me
> that web servers wouldn't run on Pentiums (this was a while ago) and
$30,000
> SUN kit (which admittedly is lovely) is needed to host a little
brochureware
> site.
Mr Morris was, I believe, highlighting a different fact. It takes about
10 X the resources to run a Java-enabled web server (memory + CPU grunt)
as compared to other lightweight solutions such as Apache + mod_perl,
or (shiver) PHP.
Java is simply and almost uniquely a total resource pig. As well,
development
time and effort in Java certainly longer than RAD tools such as perl, python
or PHP. And the ultimate insult: contrary to its raison d'etre, Java does
not run unchanged on all platforms.
But, I do agree with you Michael ... just try to convince the clueless that
something other than expensive consultant-backed vendorware is just as good.
Good luck! Marketroids have brainwashed management.
Cheers
Rick W
_____________________________________________
Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services Pty Limited
"One of the main advantages of the 'dot-bomb' downturn is that cool [web]
design has suffered a severe set back."
- www.useit.com/alertbox
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