Month: April 2007

Went through the usual suspects.  I was looking for something that supported MVC, TDD, domain driven design and had nhibernate support.  Castle handily has support for all this.  Took a look at the spring project, but, I’m not that into aspect oriented (Can you name one major aspect oriented developed project?).  Are there too many frameworks and methodologies out there?  There is one train of thought that anything worthwhile is necessarily simple in its makeup and explanation.  I agree with this except I don’t think the proper methodologies are emphasized in computer science.  People are very caught up in buzz words, but, they don’t realize that there are a lot of people working on ways of making their work easier and worthwhile.  That it comes out in a variety of shapes and forms, is not an indication of merit, but, a reflection of how many smart people there are working on all this.  A few things that can help the development of maturity in software engineering:

1. The cathedral and bazaar conflict has to leave the software engineering mindset.  This is a concern that is outside of our work.  We make the products.  Let the bankers, financiers and the like figure out how to sell it.  Software Engineers can no more impact the software engineering marketplace than automotive engineers can impact the automotive marketplace:  sure, we can design new forms and create new trends, but, when it comes down to it, its all about what some individual wants and how much they are willing to pay for it.
2. The software engineering licensing movement has to move forward.  There are too many kids with bazookas out there.  In the last 60 years we have managed to create a wasteland of broken promises and even more broken systems.  A certain seriousness has to enter into the approach to software development.  Every day, system criticality increases as IT drives more and more of human endeavor.  We have to get serious about creating good software and to do that we need good software engineers.
3. Intellectual property has to be recognized as an asset of the species rather than as corporate asset.  This may seem to contradict point one, but, let me clarify.  I said nothing about making all software free.  I believe developers should be paid for their work.  However, there must be a new model for what happens to software once its developers have received payment for their work.  Perhaps, we should all agree on some fair use clause that kicks in after X amount of years.  I am very opposed to the idea of perpetual copyrights to software.  Software has to be seen as a human intellectual product.  As such, it should only be protected for a limited amount of time and then released like all other human intellectual products.  The benefits to humanity of fair use far outweigh any financial incentive that any single developers every see in their lifetime (Bill Gates included).  Of course, this may mean a radical adjustment to the economic model for software.  However, this is happening as we speak anyway.  Software as a Service is the latest incarnation of transformations that are already happening.