Monday, October 29, 2007

Why republicans don't like SOA

I often look around for non-technical examples to use of why the people piece is more important than the technology piece and today via the wonder of YouTube and an American friend who sent me a couple of links I have a cracking one.

You know in companies the problem you have within IT or with business folks who just won't accept reality? You know the people who say "yes but if things we different then..." or "I don't care what the facts say I think this is better". You know these people, they are the types who make the same screw ups over and over again just because that is how they screwed up before, almost like a bad track record is proven track record.

The challenge often is that these people act as blockers to any change programme because it challenges, or refutes, their basically held beliefs and opinions. These might be "It must all be SAP" or "We can't change the business" or "Waterfall/Agile/Flying Monkeys/REST/Web Services are the only way to do anything" or some other single view point which doesn't like the idea of change and hates the idea of multiple ways of working and change (as an aside can people who don't like change please get out of IT).

Now to the bit that proves the republican party doesn't like SOA and prefers monolithic software delivery, well some of them anyway. Three republican presidential candidates indicated that they didn't believe Evolution was true. One of these Mike Huckabee even questions the temerity of considering this a reasonable question to ask. This is the standard response when you question people's opinions (or cushy jobs) and look to have change in an organisation. Things are declared as "off limits" for political reasons or marked down as inviolate elements that cannot be challenged.

People are the problem with change and technology isn't enough as even facts and reason often don't work.


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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it's great when people try to identify the patterns in software that match human behavior. I'd have to agree that there are far more parallels than people would ever realize.

While I can see that a creationist philosophy can lead to a resistance to anything, the Republican-monolith association doesn't really fit in the general political context.

I'll counter by pointing out the left/liberal/Democrat fondness for authoritative government bureaucracies is a better simile to monolithic, one-size-fits-all applications. Republicans, at least conservative ones, would rather operate in a loosely coupled, only-as-necessary relationship defined by mutually agreed contracts.

To support your original assertion, I do agree that many Republicans, like me, are skeptical about piling on stuff to fix things that probably aren't broken in the first place. Show us how SOA can make or save money, and we're totally on board!

Steve Jones said...

Now I'm on board with the last point as well, although personally I'd say that SOA is about economic liberalism :)

You are spot on that I could have picked on Democrats, Hugo Chavez or anyone else from the left...

But come on, Creationism and anti-evolution in 2007? That was considered ill educated and bone headed in 1907. This is why I used it to highlight the similarly bone headed and wrong assertions that many in IT make that prevent us making progress.
Donnesbury said it best :)