i have finally realized...
Dec. 3rd, 2010 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearCloud Computing is the new "CORBA".
The more I read about it, the more it is written up as a panacea, where you magically "connect" your piece to the "cloud" and magically you're able to talk to anything, anywhere.
In short, they've once again, from CORBA through WebServices SOAP through WebServices WSDL and now the cloud, sold the idea that interaction doesn't require spending money on real developers developing real adaption layers to get one thing to talk to another. They act like you can just connect the dots and your software will just know how to get what it wants from this amorphous thing.
This is, of course, bullshit.
Google is not a "cloud". It is a collection of web service APIs that I have to write code to perform basic CRUD actions (Create Read Update Delete) in order to do anything. Whether that's Picasa, Docs, or their basic Cloud data store and query engine, I still have to write code to APIs that are not transferable to anything or anyone else, and not in any way under my control. I can't just pick up and go to Amazon. I can't just say "I'm Cloud" and google's crap just works. I have to do work, just like I had to do work to get my app to talk WSDL, or SOAP before it, or CORBA before that. There is no magical button one can press to suddenly have their app talk to some other service. One has to read the API, write the code, test it, and be prepared for the inevitable problem when that API changes without you actually being told ahead of time.
In short: they are hyping this up as if everything is different...but really, nothing is different at all.
After having been involved in the IDL/CORBA push so heavily so many years ago, Tim O'Reilly himself shouldn't be falling for the current kool-ade so badly, though I fully understand: new tech, properly hyped, sells books.
The more I read about it, the more it is written up as a panacea, where you magically "connect" your piece to the "cloud" and magically you're able to talk to anything, anywhere.
In short, they've once again, from CORBA through WebServices SOAP through WebServices WSDL and now the cloud, sold the idea that interaction doesn't require spending money on real developers developing real adaption layers to get one thing to talk to another. They act like you can just connect the dots and your software will just know how to get what it wants from this amorphous thing.
This is, of course, bullshit.
Google is not a "cloud". It is a collection of web service APIs that I have to write code to perform basic CRUD actions (Create Read Update Delete) in order to do anything. Whether that's Picasa, Docs, or their basic Cloud data store and query engine, I still have to write code to APIs that are not transferable to anything or anyone else, and not in any way under my control. I can't just pick up and go to Amazon. I can't just say "I'm Cloud" and google's crap just works. I have to do work, just like I had to do work to get my app to talk WSDL, or SOAP before it, or CORBA before that. There is no magical button one can press to suddenly have their app talk to some other service. One has to read the API, write the code, test it, and be prepared for the inevitable problem when that API changes without you actually being told ahead of time.
In short: they are hyping this up as if everything is different...but really, nothing is different at all.
After having been involved in the IDL/CORBA push so heavily so many years ago, Tim O'Reilly himself shouldn't be falling for the current kool-ade so badly, though I fully understand: new tech, properly hyped, sells books.
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 09:46 pm (UTC)"write once run anywhere on thin clients",
or perhaps,
"its only on the server so we can make updates at any time rather than having to ship disks, so who needs testing?"