I hope everyone out there in the in-tar-webs is having a very happy holiday season.

This time of year always leads to reflection and I am starting to look back on this year… it has been a big one for me. More posts on that in the next couple days.

Everything is perspective.

Josh Kaufman has posted a brilliant quote by Carl Sagan. Go read it.

I got a comment on my James McGovern::Thought Leadershit blog post earlier today, ostensibly from James himself, that I feel compelled to respond to:

Don’t have such a low threshold for measuring success. Success is Java, .NET, XML, Web Services, SOA, etc. Ruby has potential and an upward trajectory but can’t yet be called successful.

In terms of getting large enterprises whose primary business model isn’t technology involved in Ruby benefits Ruby by the simple fact that this demographic represents 90% (The masses) of all IT folks. More importantly, this same demographic has 590% more capital than the 10% that Ruby currently has. Capital allows folks to accelerate the growth, features and adoption of all the hard work the Ruby community put into it.

You should noodle this thought and even if you agree slightly, you should amplify it in your next blog entry…

I slightly agree with the above, mostly with the demographics and the problems those demographics cause. Not sure about the math…. However, what I really want to address is not the demographics… those are a causal by-product the misunderstanding evident in these statements:

Don’t have such a low threshold for measuring success. Success is Java, .NET, XML, Web Services, SOA, etc. Ruby has potential and an upward trajectory but can’t yet be called successful.

My definition of success in the enterprise has absolutely nothing to do with the technology used. Technology is nothing more than an enabler for the solutions set forth by the organization to accomplish its goals. Java, .Net, XML, Web Services, SOA, and yes, even Ruby are all just tools (and fads) that we have at our disposal at this point in time that help accomplish these goals. They are not the success factors themselves.

I am much more concerned with providing value and efficiencies to the organization. Solving problems matters more then the technology used.

What I value more than the programming language

1. Right sized solutions to the right problems. It is so easy to build the wrong sized solution, buts worse when its not even the right problem.
2. Simplicity Simplicity is a mindset. But lets not mistake it for “Do the simplest thing that could possibly work.” Do the simplest thing that can be maintained for 10 years.
3. Maintainability I am sick and tired of hearing about brand spanking new projects using Struts, because thats what people know. But, on the other hand, if you can see struts still being used (and supported) at the EOL for your project, by all means. Typically I prefer to weigh my decisions on what is the latest, with the most likelyhood to succeed. Failing that (which most frameworks do), I want to know how bad (unreadable) the frameworks code is… good sign of how easy it will be to fix problems when you are on your own.
4. Flexibility I want flexibility in my language, my IDE, my organization, and not least of which: my system’s architecture.
5. Structure But, you cannot be all flexibility. Think of your app as a piece of Bamboo. Simple, elegant, solid, and flexible in the wind.
6. Understanding The team must be able to read my code. Everyone (devs, admins, users, everyone) must understand the vision of the app. Without this, you have people doing things that will invariably be incongruent with the vision and goals of the team and organization.

In essence, I want everyone to think about what they are doing, and try to come up with the simplest, most maintainable system they can. I think that that is difficult in every language, and in fact I think it transcends language. This is the Silver Bullet problem (there isn’t one). So, all I can do is try to design the system the best I can, and then use a language that gives me the best Thought to Expression ratio for my solution.

Thought to Expression Ratio

I’ve mentioned this a couple of times before. Thought to Expression Ratio is a very subjective measure of how much expression is needed to convey a thought, with a ratio of 1:1 being perfect expression of a thought and 1:0 being the no expression capable of the thought.

As an example, remember the old saying “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Now, if only we had a programming language that could do that. Well, we do in a way. This is were Domain Specific Languages come into play. We can bring the programming system closer to the thoughts of the organization, and in so doing, raise the Thought to Expression ratio. And right now, there are few languages that give me the flexibility to define a DSL easily, with Ruby being the one with the most interest pointed in its direction.

Durability

By day I am a Enterprise Java developer/architect. By night I play with Ruby, and Smalltalk, and other languages that intrigue me. Why? Because Java will not be around forever. Java is indeed the next COBOL. In fact, so is Ruby. And C++, and VB, and .Net. and ….

I am a proponent of Ruby, though not as much as one might think given some of my previous posts. I value the flexibility that Ruby gives me, but I also hate the sheer power with which Ruby allows a person to write the most horrendously ugly code this side of perl. Indeed, this is what could very well be the downfall of Ruby.

Success

In the end, success on an Enterprise application can only be determined by the organization and teams involved. This is a hard problem, especially the more stakeholders involved in the definition of success. And, to me, that has nothing to do with the languages involved.

Stefan Tilkov has a great article on what he feels are the 10 Principles of SOA. Everyone doing Enterprise level development should read this.

Back at the beginning of October, I blogged about switching from bloglines to Google’s Reader. Well, its mid-December now, and I must say that I could not be happier with Reader. This baby still rocks!

The big reason why I left bloglines was that it showed me how far backlogged I was… it was depressing me. At least I thought that was the problem. I had dropped down to under 20 feeds while on bloglines, and was feeling ok; not overwhelmed, not underwhelmed… just right. Then I moved to Reader and immediately pulled in my old OPML file from bloglines. I immediately pared it down to under 100, but have been slowly climbing since then. I am now right around 140. I am trying to be more select in what I put in my blogroll, but there is jsut too much f-in good content out there!

I only have one gripe for Reader, which also is a problem with Gmail, and it is probably due to Google’s Personalized homepage: there are no management functions on the individual item views provided when clicking on an email or feed post from my homepage. For Reader, I would love to be able to share the item from there. For Gmail, Delete, Archive, MARK AS SPAM (please, if there is a God!), and Label would all be nice, and are suprisingly absent.

By the way, if you would like to see what I share from Reader, here is the feed , or if you would prefer to look at them on a web page (for some strang reason) you can look here.