Making it stick.

Maybe we should determine the request of another term from Mr. Bush on the answer to one question. In 2000, Mr. Bush clearly claimed to be "a uniter, not a divider."

Well, is he a uniter or a divider? (Arm twisting shouldn't count.)

Another survey is making the rounds. Here I am...

Your distinct personality, The Dreamer-Minstrel might be found in most of the thriving kingdoms of the time. You can always see the "Silver Lining" to every dark and dreary cloud. Look at the bright side is your motto and understanding why everything happens for the best is your goal. You are the positive optimist of the world who provides the hope for all humankind. There is nothing so terrible that you can not find some good within it. On the positive side, you are spontaneous, charismatic, idealistic and empathic. On the negative side, you may be a sentimental dreamer who is emotionally impractical. Interestingly, your preference is just as applicable in today's corporate kingdoms.

Daily Zen...

Because you grasp labels and slogans,
You are hindered by those labels and slogans,
Both those used in ordinary life and those
Considered sacred.
Thus they obstruct your perception
Of objective truth,
And you cannot understand clearly.

- Linji (d. 867)

Mark Baker responds...

"innocuous"? I wouldn't say that. I think it's actively harmful as a name for an architectural style. As I see it, "SOA" means different things to different people...it does nothing to constrain how one might go about building distributed systems.

Fair enough. I've not seen the harm yet, but there's still time. 8^/

Mark Baker writes...

Gartner's claim that REST proponents rag on SOAP is backwards; we like SOAP, mostly. We just don't like SOA.

I consider myself a REST convert, to the extent I think I understand it and its incarnation in HTTP. Though I don't understand the position above. Is there even a concrete definition of SOA with which to make this statement?

I thought SOA was a fairly innocuous term, being so vaguely defined that an SOA could be built using REST and HTTP.

Radovan Janecek writes...

Patrick's post looked like I don't like criticism or discussion. Btw, it seems he removed his 'Criticism', entry. Hmm.

Yes, I was in a hurry, saw your comment that I misinterpreted you, and took the fast route of just deleting the post, leaving no trail. Worked in a pinch, rather than leaving my misrepresentation up on the site for a day.

Tim Brookins writes more about MBF and WinFS. This pleases me because I want to like MBF and WinFS. But it concerns me because I'm uncomfortable with the direction they're taking. I should say I like the high-level intent to support building domain-driven designs and flexible databases. But...

Wouldn't it be fantastic to finally let users see their Customers and Orders in the shell?

I think these days they want to see them easily from any device, any location. That would mean the Internet browser rather than the Windows shell. Why the shell? That's outdated. I don't even want to see the shell, period.

ISVs really need one combined platform which merges the best of the WinFS and MBF data persistence stories.

Most ISVs are building world-wide web applications these days, aren't they? They need a simple user interface and a flexible database. In tomorrow's mobile world, a flexible database will not have a single location...

While WinFS synchronization is great for keeping your pictures synced across machines, it really isn't going to be viable to build a multi-user business application. So you need the server-side N-Tier capabilities that MBF provides.

This seems to be a false dichotomy. I've seen too many domain-driven systems become prematurely obsolete from built-in dependencies on specific underlying mechanisms. We need objects that can live a dozen years or more. This is demonstrably *not* the way to do so.

MBF should be an arms distance from WinFS, Indigo, Avalon, SQL Server, etc. I've already stated WinFS should be a more flexible database rather than an elaborate file system.

Ted Leung points to a rosy article in Wired about pebble-bed nuclear reactors as a "safe" way out of the energy crisis.

Even if this approach is safer, is it safe?

The article does not address a couple of, well, problems:

• Security ("dirty" bombs, anyone?)
• Waste Management.

Oh, the article *does* address waste management...

And with the fuel sealed inside layers of graphite and impermeable silicon carbide - designed to last 1 million years - there's no steaming pool for spent fuel rods. Depleted balls can go straight into lead-lined steel bins in the basement.

Looking around at our world's politics, not to mention science, I have to sigh just a little at the phrase "designed to last 1 million years". We have no true concept of this.

Hans Nowak is wondering about code blocks in Python. While Python's anonymous (lambda) functions are fairly awkward, Python does do a kind of "Currying" over self. The following code shows the simpler mechanism Hans is looking for...

Jython 2.1 on java1.4.1_01 (JIT: null)
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.>>> class FooBar:
... def foo(self):
... print self
... print "OK?"
...>>> fb = FooBar()>>> fb.foo()
__main__.FooBar instance at 17493979
OK?>>> fb2 = FooBar()>>> fb2
__main__.FooBar instance at 24940415>>> fb2.foo()
__main__.FooBar instance at 24940415
OK?>> fb2.foo()
__main__.FooBar instance at 24940415
OK?>>> fb.foo
method FooBar.foo of FooBar instance at 17493979>>> fb2.foo
method FooBar.foo of FooBar instance at 24940415>>> 

Update: Other useful quotes from Tim Bray...

I’m deeply suspicious of “standards” built by committees in advance of industry experience, and I’m deeply suspicious of... multiple layers of abstraction that try to get between me and the messages full of angle-bracketed text that I push around to get work done.

And Sean McGrath writes...

The whole WS standards thing has more moving parts than a 747. Much of it recently invented, untested and unproven in the real world... there are no exceptions to Gall's Law:

"A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked."

Originally I quoted jeff schneider writing...

I am of the opinion that the WS-* spec teams are doing a severe disservice to the community by releasing these specifications without also identifying the best practices. In my opinion, it is no longer acceptable to release paradigm changing specifications without also releasing an implementation or best practice guide to go with it.

I could not agree more. The argument could be made there is a good bit of experience with these particular verbs. I think that argument is implicit (read below). But such an argument would be invalid. By far the majority of experiences with these verbs is unrelated to the kinds of systems this spec is intended for. Clearly this kind of a shift should be accompanied by references, examples, and best practices.

Standardizing verbs is good. I was a bit curious why the group didn't create a 'verb extension' or 'verb introduction' mechanism, but rather just 'hardcoded' a handful of verbs.

I am thankful they did not. Better to get experience with a fixed set and expand on that later if warranted.

Web Service Transfer (WS-Transfer)

Sorry. For some reason MSDN decided not to put tags inside the page. If you scroll down a few screensful, you will find the definition in a PDF and this abstract...

WS-Transfer defines how to invoke a simple set of familiar verbs (Get, Post, Put, and Delete) using SOAP. An application protocol may be constructed to perform these operations over resources.

Why, yes, these verbs do seem familiar. This makes them easier to adopt into a brand new spec, I guess. But does that make them the right set of verbs?

These verbs are workable in HTTP. But are they desirable when starting over? Do they facilitate automated coordination of distributed, asynchronous resources as well as any other set of verbs?

This spec looks to me like the easy way out of the job of hypothesizing, discovering, and validating something potentially more useful. Curious HTTP is not listed in the references. Neither are any landmark writings in the history of coordination mechanisms.

Sigh. While this could be seen as a simplified path out of the deep, dark woods of the WS-xxx, instead it is a cheap short cut avoiding or at least lacking much evidence of deep thought. Typical for WS-xxx then.

A story from Charles Monteiro about FP&L's use of Smalltalk and Gemstone in their call center and trouble management systems.

I was pleased to know that the call center systems I had helped build were still standing and so was the trouble call management system among others.

Me too, then, I guess, in a smaller way. I wrote the Gem multiplexor that removed the "1 user / 1 OS process" restriction, to scale up the number of client connections to numbers approaching those claimed by the sales people years before. FP&L was one of the first customers to use it. Supposedly there was one situation where the Gemstone system kept running on Unix while IBM had to come in and patch the TCP/IP stack on the mainframe part of the system. Gemstone then cranked back up to full speed.

I am glad that so far those systems have weathered the Java marketing hype hurricane.

Yeah, that's great. Unfortunately Gemstone had barely developed federated Stones, multiplexed Gems, and better DB connections just before putting those efforts on the shelf in favor of the Java grail which not surprisingly never materialized. They continued making money from Smalltalk.

From OS News...

"Hey - did you know that GNU Smalltalk now has GTK+ bindings? This is pretty sweet."

I miss the Greater Boston Chapter of the ACM, in particular their in-depth workshops like the one coming up on Parrot.

About twenty years ago, Adele Goldberg was president of the ACM. She gave a talk to the GBC-ACM, and a Saturday before or after someone held one of those all-day Saturday workshops on Smalltalk. That was my first exposure to Smalltalk and circuitously led to the Mainsail programming language being ported to the Data General 32-bit Eclipse CPU.

The Alto was based on the DG Nova, and Data General was one of the first licensees of Smalltalk, but I never saw Smalltalk running on any DG hardware. Mainsail (a "managed runtime" in today's dry terminology) almost became the primary application development language for DG's workstations. Unfortunately C and Unix had captured a lot of imagination in the early 1980s and DG followed that road, ultimately to destruction, as HP did to Apollo.

Steve Gillmor wites:

Hmmm…synchronization. That rings a bell. Oh yes, the Alchemy stuff that Adam Bosworth was working on at BEA before he left to join Google. The Alchemy framework establishes an intelligent cache layer between the server and the browser client, allowing robust support for transactions and off-line support within standards-based browsers, just what Google needs to extend Gmail and other services to enterprise customers to G-Spot.

I recently saw "And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself" on DVD. The movie is good, I'd like to read more about Pancho Villa now.

The main disappointment was the DVD's extras. I would have wanted more historical background on Pancho Villa. Larry Gelbart's running commentary is interesting.

A pretty good exposition of services and data within and across service bouindaries from Microsoft. Something is lacking though...

SQL makes a great tool for representing data on the inside of services. These strengths are inextricably linked to the bounded nature in both space and time of SQL, which make it fantastic for representing data on the "inside". Unlike XML, SQL has strong querying capabilities. SQL's makes comparisons between almost anything within the bounds of the database. Because of SQL's bounded nature, however, it is incapable of the strengths of XML in the "outside". SQL does not offer independent definition of schema as it depends heavily on a centralized and tightly coupled DDL.

What's wrong with this? It's out of focus.

At some point though developers will have to address data models as opposed to data notations. What are good models within and across service boundaries, whatever the notations used to representation and query? I have some ideas, but I'd like to see these ideas addressed more broadly and deeply.

Daily Zen:

Over the course of centuries, Zen has branched out into different schools With individual methods, But the purpose is still the same- To point directly to the human mind.

Yuan wu (1063-1135)

Nelson captures the absurdity...

I give the Bush campaign credit for their evil powers. There's a debate about the war record of Bush and Kerry. Whose service are we questioning? Are we talking about the Texas Air National Guardsman who flitted off to Alabama where no one can tell if he he really showed up for duty and he even lost his pilot qualification before leaving early to go back to school? No, we're debating the record of the the man who went to Vietnam and was awarded many medals for his leadership and service.

To win an election, the first thing you have to do is control the terms of the debate.

Daily Zen:

Let go of all your previous imaginings, opinions, interpretations, worldly knowledge, intellectualism, egotism, and competitiveness; become like a dead tree, like cold ashes. When you reach the point where feelings are ended, views are gone, and your mind is clean and naked, you open up to Zen realization.

After that it is also necessary to develop consistency, keeping the mind pure and free from adulteration at all times. If there is the slightest fluctuation, there is no hope of transcending the world. Cut through resolutely, and then your state will be peaceful. When you cannot be included in any stage, whether of sages or of ordinary people, then you are like a bird freed from its cage.

Yuan wu (1063-1135)