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In all fairness, business would be wise to dispense with much of the pointlessly low-level technology it uses. You want to automate a business process? Then for

In all fairness, business would be wise to dispense with much of the pointlessly low-level technology it uses. You want to automate a business process? Then formalize the business process itself, not the tool that you think could help you automate it. And do it in a programming language, of course.

Terr_ 9y ago
Reminds me a little of: http://thecodelesscode.com/case/231 http://thecodelesscode.com/case/231
blunte 9y ago
Formalizing the process is a noble goal, but there will always be clients that want your formalized process with "just a few tweaks". I think we should endeavor to formalize as much as is reasonably possible, pushing the bulk of the developer work to dealing with the special cases. But even that will eventually result in a small formal core surrounded by layers and chunks of customizations.
- catnaroek 9y ago
  > Formalizing the process is a noble goal, but there will always be clients that want your formalized process with "just a few tweaks". The client owns the process - it's their business after all - so they can define it however they wish. I'm not arguing for canned software. I'm arguing for a programming language in which business processes can be defined directly. (I'm aware of the existence of BPMN, ARIS, and other business process modeling tools, but those fall short of being actual programming languages.)
  - blunte 9y ago
    I'm for whatever tools lead to better outcomes (more complete solutions for less cost). From my experience, however, non-technical decision makers often start from the assumption that the things they want are easy. As such, they tend to be reluctant to invest in new technologies or approaches. In fact, the most common first approach when they become convinced that what they want is actually "big" is to attempt to offshore. In other words, they naively assume that the solution to complexity is more (cheaper) bodies. So even if a great tool comes along that allows us to meet needs more effectively, it's not guaranteed to be accepted.
lmm 9y ago
High-level programming is only possible once we admit that what we want to do is programming. Too often there's a perception that "configuration" is easier or safer than programming, even when that configuration is Turing-complete.
- taneq 9y ago
  It's like the web development treadmill. You start out with HTML and some scripting. You build your non-technical users a web site, then an admin page so they can upload pictures and text to their web site. Gradually they request more flexibility and control, until you've ended up reimplementing a crappy version of HTML and some scripting.
  - lmm 9y ago
    Yep. More generally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner-platform_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner-platform_effect
- hashmal 9y ago
  Spreadsheets in a nutshell.
pasquinelli 9y ago
kind of like how factories are built around the equipment rather than the equipment being built to work out how to function in a given factory.

Terr_ 9y ago

Reminds me a little of: http://thecodelesscode.com/case/231 http://thecodelesscode.com/case/231

blunte 9y ago

Formalizing the process is a noble goal, but there will always be clients that want your formalized process with "just a few tweaks". I think we should endeavor to formalize as much as is reasonably possible, pushing the bulk of the developer work to dealing with the special cases. But even that will eventually result in a small formal core surrounded by layers and chunks of customizations.

catnaroek 9y ago
> Formalizing the process is a noble goal, but there will always be clients that want your formalized process with "just a few tweaks". The client owns the process - it's their business after all - so they can define it however they wish. I'm not arguing for canned software. I'm arguing for a programming language in which business processes can be defined directly. (I'm aware of the existence of BPMN, ARIS, and other business process modeling tools, but those fall short of being actual programming languages.)
- blunte 9y ago
  I'm for whatever tools lead to better outcomes (more complete solutions for less cost). From my experience, however, non-technical decision makers often start from the assumption that the things they want are easy. As such, they tend to be reluctant to invest in new technologies or approaches. In fact, the most common first approach when they become convinced that what they want is actually "big" is to attempt to offshore. In other words, they naively assume that the solution to complexity is more (cheaper) bodies. So even if a great tool comes along that allows us to meet needs more effectively, it's not guaranteed to be accepted.

lmm 9y ago

High-level programming is only possible once we admit that what we want to do is programming. Too often there's a perception that "configuration" is easier or safer than programming, even when that configuration is Turing-complete.

taneq 9y ago
It's like the web development treadmill. You start out with HTML and some scripting. You build your non-technical users a web site, then an admin page so they can upload pictures and text to their web site. Gradually they request more flexibility and control, until you've ended up reimplementing a crappy version of HTML and some scripting.
- lmm 9y ago
  Yep. More generally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner-platform_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner-platform_effect
hashmal 9y ago
Spreadsheets in a nutshell.

pasquinelli 9y ago

kind of like how factories are built around the equipment rather than the equipment being built to work out how to function in a given factory.