Amish Oriented Databases

Was Ray Ozzie right? I've been seeing a fair amount of information circulating about RDDB. RDDB is a document-oriented, RESTful database. Lotus Notes is a document-oriented, old database (and email program, calendar, workflow form generator). The cool thing is that all of my Lotus Notes knowledge, which was rapidly becoming worthless now has a chance to be valuable again if this sort of thing takes off again.

I was in a Rails training class with this guy who made his career on the back old Notes and their ugly little autogenerated web apps. He kept asking, "how do we keep this from becoming another Lotus Notes?" At the time, I was thinking, "how do I keep myself from being one of those guys who looks at every new technology in terms of some old technology that he actually had time to understand?" Now, looking at the potential resurgence in document oriented datbases, maybe he was right...nah. Rails is nothing like Notes, because, uh...it's dynamically typed? No, Notes had that. Works with Java now, thanks to JRuby? No, IBM took care of that with Domino+WebSphere. Hmmm. At least 37 Signals hasn't been sold to IBM while David H. grabbed the lead role at Microsoft.

Oh, wait, there is a difference. REST! I had posted a long while back about how my cousin made fun of me in front of a huge room of people because he asked what the two types of web services were (hoping for document oriented and remote procedure call as answers) and I said "REST". He said the REST people were like the Amish, got some laughs and proceeded to promote WS-*. At lunch after his talk, Bob Martin took my side, so I knew I had made at least an interestingly wrong decision. Tim Bray has a nice round-up of other smart people that were wrong about that. So sweet to be right about that, even though he could kick my shins in programming any day of the week. Except Sunday, when we Amish polish our wooden laptops. Anyway, maybe RDDB is more Amish Oriented Database than Rails Oriented.

So Rails has REST, and even though I swore off creating RESTful apps when the initial URL implementation was polluted with semi-colons, it's the real deal now. Not so much for the application, but for the API. It's great to have APIs that are platform independent. Most things like a Lotus Notes wouldn't bother with this- doesn't help with platform lock-in. I spent more time working with the Lotus Notes ODBC driver to suck data out of the system than was reasonable. Of course, they did support COM, which was the REST of the day (if CORBA was the WS-*).

Now, REST still needs a solution for the old federated identity problem (so many websites, so many passwords, so many usernames)...but there are plenty of options. Maybe my cousin is right about CAS? Seems Amish enough for me.

Feral Programmer

Feral Programmer: A programmer who has no notion whatsoever of common, socially acceptable programming practices or knowledge of available tools and technologies. The feral programmer is not necessarily a bad coder, and sometimes could be labeled a savant, but is generally impossible to work with due to the complete lack of any common framework of understanding. Somewhat of a corollary to Not Invented Here syndrome, the feral programmer is either just completely unaware or uncomprehending of most inventions in the field. Behaviors include: creating flat file databases, version control systems or their own web service architecture built of packet sniffers, frequently using only Perl.

iPhone SDK trumped

A third note in the open platforms series...Facebook vs. OpenSocial, Second Life vs. Multiverse, iPhone vs. Android. Now strictly speaking, the iPhone is the least walled garden of the three, but the lack of Java support means that it's a little like Facebook. Even with the vague SDK announcement, all applications will have to be custom built for it. Fortunately you can still use the iPhone to get to your Google docs...

Where's my GPhone?

Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications -- all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation.

We recognize that many among the multitude of mobile users around the world do not and may never have an Android-based phone. Our goals must be independent of device or even platform.

...tear down that wall.

You have to love the timing of the Open Social API announcement. Facebook is not worth $15B or $3 for every person on earth...

As pmarca puts it:

This is the exact same concept as the Facebook platform, with two huge differences:

• With the Facebook platform, only Facebook itself can be a "container" -- "apps" can only run within Facebook itself. In contrast, with Open Social, any social network can be an Open Social container and allow Open Social apps to run within it.
• With the Facebook platform, app developers build to Facebook-proprietary languages and APIs such as FBML (Facebook Markup Language) and FQL (Facebook Query Language) -- those languages and APIs don't work anywhere other than Facebook -- and then the apps can only run within Facebook. In contrast, with Open Social, app developers can build to standard HTML and Javascript, and their apps can then run in any Open Social container.

In keeping with my thoughts on 3D virtual worlds, the walled garden approach is not the end state, the "internet of virtual worlds" is. I think we're going to see this with Facebook, MySpace and others eventually becoming part of an "internet social spaces" connections between bits and pieces of ourselves, photos on flickr, blog on blogger, twits on twitter, profile on myspace, maps on geocommons, restaurant reviews on yelp, plus whatever we think of next week. Tying all of this together is going to be remarkably cool.

Technology like OpenID is really useful, and that's why you see Enterprise players like Oracle on the agreement. Now Facebook has a great UI and momentum, so there is still a really huge chance that this effort will fail if it turns out that no one uses it effectively, but I think there will be at least one innovation out there that will cause Facebook to pull down the wall towards interop of their data...

Official Gmail Blog: Code changes to prepare Gmail for the future

Official Gmail Blog: Code changes to prepare Gmail for the future

How sad is it that I get excited about a mostly invisible update to a web based email program? Nonetheless, I am "stoked" for the gmail updates, and only slightly concerned about potentially losing some GreaseMonkey awesomeness.

Pete Lacey's SOA definition

Read this SOA definition from Pete Lacey this morning and it almost makes sense...too bad it's not what most people mean.

So, then, what is SOA? For one thing, SOA is misnamed. It’s not an architecture in any sense of the word. It is, to use a Burton Group phrase, a mind set. It is the generally held belief that when implementing systems one should expose system functionality for general consumption directly from the network, as well as or instead of burying it behind a user interface. It is, as well, the belief that there is a great deal of value to be generated by retrofitting network accessibility into most existing systems. And it is the belief that this can only work if the means of doing so aren’t locked to a particular language, framework, operating system, vendor, or network architecture.

It's a bit hard to disagree with that as a good policy. However, having a bit of a linguistic bent, it makes me wonder if there isn't something fundamentally wrong with an acronym that is "misnamed". Mr. Lacey does suggest an alternative term for what he is describing: Network Oriented Computing. However doesn't that make it a worse definition of SOA (since the definition better fits another term)? It does. His final definition of SOA is "a technical approach to NOC that has a non-uniform service interface as its principle abstraction. Today, SOAP/WS-* is the chief implementation approach.". This is a better definition because it actually is an architecture. It also sits well next to ROA (Resource Oriented Architecture).

The killer final definition he offers is: "Business Service Architecture (BSA): An unnecessary term (also not an architecture) that tries to make the obvious something special. Aka, business analysis. Aka, requirements gathering." Reading this crystallized something important about why phrases like IT-Business alignment always bothered me- you align the IT systems with the business via requirements gathering. Now, maybe you are doing it at high level and want to give it a special name, but the dangers of abstract terms are that people can look like they are agreeing about how to do something, but really have completely different ideas about what they are concretely going to do.

Hmm, that might be a topic for another post.

Metaverse Skeptic

I've been an extreme skeptic when it comes to virtual worlds for a while now. I really can't understand how people can get excited about things like Second Life. None of the arguments for it as a great business seem to make much sense. The false scarcity markets for real estate seem quite misguided. I really enjoyed working with Forterra the other day- it's definitely richer than chat rooms and teleconferences in terms of communication- but is it richer than video telecon? In one way it is, because you can walk around and such, but that also imposes the limitations of the real world upon communication: you can't hear someone if you walk too far away.

I left a highly skeptical comment on James Au's post on 7 reasons why business execs should care about second life. There needs to be an Internet of sorts, so that the virtual worlds can, well, internetwork. You can't say Second Life is that important, because investing so much in something owned by another company is putting all of your eggs in one basket. It's like starting a company that builds Facebook applications- when (not if) Facebook gets acquired, your whole business model is in jeopardy. Better make a quick buck.

The world isn't just about open platforms. It's about interoperable platforms. One thing that makes adoption of new GIS systems possible is that the data can be transitioned from one to another because all of the stuff is connected to real world coordinates, and it is possible to translate from one coordinate system to another because the both refer to a place on the real earth. I am not sure what the virtual coordinate system is. With the Internet, it's the unified addressing and naming schemes. There can only be one 220.231.23.123 on the public internet.

In this light, the iPhone looks really dumb. You can't install apps on it. Okay, WiFi works and the phone bit actually connects with the real phone network, but it's not an open platform. Few cell phones are unlocked to connect to multiple networks, but Apple seems to be actively discouraging this. To me, that's a sign of a bad business model- easily defeated. Just make the money on the device- not the lock-in.

It seems like the right business model is have an open and interoperable platform. It cuts off competitors, but allows you to benefit from the network effects of others innovations.

The Alignment Trap

Lots of good articles in the Fall Sloan Review of Management which I am just getting around to reading...

Avoiding the Alignment Trap in IT
One of the big ideas in IT Enterprise Architecture lately is Business / IT alignment. This is generally defined as the concept that the shape of the services offered by IT should reflect the offerings of the business. At the very least, it makes it easier for the CIO to justify why they are spending money on project X- because it is directly tied to a business need. To some degree it's a communication convenience.

In reality, the biggest benefits seem to come from simplifying the infrastructure and putting an emphasis on integration. A second article in the SMR by Cynthia Rettig really hits it on the head: The trouble with enterprise software:


...enterprise software may be just too complex to deliver on its promises. She also suggests that the next new thing — service-oriented architecture (SOA) — is not likely to fare much better, for many of the same reasons. There are no easy fixes, cautions Rettig, save a large dose of sobriety, clear-eyed analysis and emphasis on simplicity and efficiency.

If you want to read one of the best advocates for the odd beast known as SOA, I suggest following Bobby Woolf's blog or reading his new ebook. His old book is has had a solid slot on my shelf for a couple of years, but I still haven't felt the need to install an Enterprise Service Bus. (Despite the fact that I more or less use it as a design pattern for integration architectures, just without the overhead of actually having it be a running piece of software)

In any case, I am not writing myself out of a job here- the message is simple though: don't try to do everything at the expense of ending up with complexity. Keeping things simple and hitting the "Pareto important" requirements is the winning strategy.

Xobni

I was really disappointed to read about Xobni. Bringing Gmail features to Outlook- and letting you 'pivot' your email by who it is from / to. I am disappointed because I have a great idea for an inbox assistant that I am conceptualizing, and this thing looks much better, if not really on the same track. The good side of it is that I will get a better sense of the market for Outlook plugins from watching their progress.

My idea is a little more focused on another aspect of email- the doing side of things, while Xobni is more on the analytical side. I still really want to try it, even though a few of the details are far from clear at this point...

I've also been checking out the trial for Sandy. It's another email type tool, except it's more of a command line using email. You send Sandy an email and she either updates your calendar, todos, sends a reminder or just remembers it. With the API support, you could think of it as a mail in interface to all of the tools you already use. I really wanted to like it, but it's not quite what I thought it was going to be.

Here's what my tool is going to do- help you get through your email faster and more effectively. I've been on the verge of declaring email bankruptcy a couple of times in the past months and I need this tool to stay at inbox zero (see below video for more on that).

Is CS "The Modern Liberal Arts Degree"?

Interesting thoughts on CS and Econ degrees on Marginal Revolution.

From the Comments:
I was a CS major at MIT and was heavily recruited by Wall Street firms. My friends who were studying economics did not do nearly as well right out of college. The CS major is a modern "liberal arts" degree; you can do almost anything with it. In my case, I am getting my PhD in economics. I think studying economics instead of CS as an undergrad just signals that you want a high-paying job without having to do any hard work.

Or maybe proving you can make it through one of the more challenging academic programs in the world means there is less risk in hiring you to do anything...Anyway, I don't have a CompSci degree, despite taking most of the 400 level courses, and I've never missed having one (that I know of).

I do really like the idea that CS is just a tool for getting involved in some other industry.

Another Comment:
This is all kind of funny to me. After graduating with a BBA Econ in 1999 I made a play at the CS world. Realizing I was not willing to learn any real programing I went to get my PhD in Econ. Now I sit all day... programing.

Funny world.



And you can now just follow along online...