The Vietnam of Computer Science

Παναγιώτης Καναβός — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 17:51:19 GMT

Ο Ted Neward έχει ένα πολύ καλό blog για αρχιτεκτονική συστημάτων σε Java. Τον τελευταίο καιρό έχει ξεκινήσει μια συζήτηση μεταξύ του και του Don Box αλλά και άλλων για τα προβλήματα και τα λάθη του CORBA, J2EE, νέες προσπάθειες να λυθούν (Spring, Picocontainers), πως τα Web Services κινδυνεύουν να μπλέξουν στην ίδια κατάσταση, τί κάνει η Microsoft με το Indigo για να αποφύγει τα ίδια προβλήματα κλπ.

Σε ένα από τα posts ο Neward απαντάει στον Box το εξής:

Meanwhile, Don ended his weblog entry with:

As an aside, I really wonder how many O/R mappers the world needs. It's frightening how much energy goes into building these things (on both sides of the aisle I might add).

Oh, dude, you have NO idea how much I agree with this statement. You weren't there, but at TechEd 2004 in May I was involved in a long conversation with Harry Pierson and Clemens Vasters about ORMs, and I made the (apparently now somewhat famous or infamous) statement that "object-relational mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science", referring to exactly that particular problem: the amount of progress when compared to the amount of energy put in is a staggeringly bad ratio (once you get past some of the simpler things). Hibernate is fast approaching that point, and I think it's in Gavin's best interests to simply declare victory and call the troops home at this point before he gets himself into an even deeper quagmire. And I think Microsoft would be well-advised to bury ObjectSpaces and pretend they'd never heard of the idea.

Design & Architecture

The Vietnam of Computer Science