"Evangelism in the IT industry is ethically bankrupt. Every world saving concept in this industry in the last 15 years, promoted with evangelical zeal, has turned out to be a bust. There's a simple reason for that"
Walter Morris, Managing Director of MWM Systems Limited continues,
"I started out on UNIX machines, cutting code on CTIX System 5 boxes, and later on SCO, HPUX, and for my sins, AIX boxes. During that time, the PC was gaining strength as machine power climbed along with ease of use.
"Along came the concept of the NC - the network computer. A stripped down PC, that would be much cheaper, in essence running in the same vein as CITRIX setups do today. It was supposed to revolutionise things, and there was a lot of rhetoric as serious industry players took up positions for and against.
"Couple of years later - the idea was pretty much dead and buried. Client/Server was now the answer to world peace, and many, many companies abandoned their UNIX based software, and jumped to client/server, absorbing a huge cost into the bargain.
"Granted, there was more functionality on offer, but it came at a cost. Training costs were a lot higher, despite the idea that all Windows based applications were supposed to operate the same way. More than a decade later, we're *still* waiting for that to happen!
"That flexibility caused the next wave of problems, as user after user downloaded spyware or brought in disks from home. Client/Server created as many headaches as it solved. CITRIX entered stage right, in theory giving the best of both worlds, yet often misconfiguration and misunderstandings about how it should operate gave the worst of both worlds.
"Then JAVA was on the scene, being pushed in a big way. Write once, run anywhere was the mantra. A whole generation of students swearing allegiance to the JAVA mentality, conveniently ignoring the fact that run anywhere was then, and still is, a myth. Applications are always written to the latest generation of classes - which can take years to be ported across all of those diverse operating systems. There is now such a plethora of JAVA based technologes, JSP, JAVA, Javabeans, Java servlets, embedded Java, that even the term JAVA has become largely meaningless.
"The domination of Microsoft on the desktop certainly gave .NET a leg up, and so far is proving promising - but it still isn't in my opinion the be-all and end-all of software development.
"Evangelism of any tool, technology or approach is ethically bankrupt in my opinion. There has never been, and I highly doubt there ever will be, a single paradigm that fits every situation. The best approach is to remain fluid, adopting and abandoning technologies and techniques as required. As they say, the only definite in life is change. "
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