PeerPoint Discussion - please don't use for other topics

[Miles Fidelman]

Poor Richard wrote:
> I'm disappointed but not surprised that the PeerPoint project is viewed 
> with scorn by old-guard digital libertarians and anarchists.

Please don't count me as either of those, as I am neither.

>
> I am accused of being naive--they've seen everything and done  
> everything and they have a superior, smug outlook. They argue that what 
> works is more of what they are accustomed to.

Personally, my criticisms are based precisely on lessons learned the hard 
way about what NOT to do, because it hasn't worked.
>
> But it is exactly that approach that resulted in the present state of  
> affairs in which the internet is colonized and dominated by large  
> corporate actors.
>
> Anarchists and libertarians are the unwitting pawns of the powerful  
> actors they mean to resist.

I'll certainly agree with you there.  Part of the mess we're in with the  
Internet comes precisely from folks who refused to play in the political  
or business arenas - leaving the Internet ripe for colonization by both  
corporate types and by old style regulators. Unfortunately, nobody wanted 
to get involved early to help craft a regulatory environment that would 
protect the net.

>
> I've been around IT since long before the internet, since it was called 
> data processing. Since before email and electronic bulletin boards and 
> USENET. And I've been involved in every aspect of it since we operated 
> mainframes with teletype terminals and punched tape right through until 
> today. I was old guard once, very old guard.
>
And it shows.  PeerPoint strikes me as a classic case of analyze, analyze, 
analyze, then design the one true solution, by committee. To a degree that 
was necessary in the days of expensive mainframes - but it's also what led 
to the "PC wars" where corporate IT tried to hold the reigns of control, 
while departments bought microcomputers and PCs, and suddenly everyone was 
a spreadsheet jockey.  Made life a lot easier for folks who wanted to get 
their jobs done, not so good for data sharing and long term preservation.  
It's not clear that the best balance has been found after 30 years or so.  
(I lived on both sides of those wars, not fun.  And I, too, punched cards 
and toggled boot loaders into front panel switches before that.)

One of the clear lessons of the past decade or so, is that developing  
software in today's world is a lot more like gardening, or maybe farming, 
than design and manufacturing.  Define simple interfaces, create a climate, 
fertilize, cut weeds, do some selective seeding, trim stuff, and otherwise 
stand back.

The clearest example is SOA vs. REST.  Huge amounts of time and money have 
gone into defining SOA architectures, but noboday actually uses them.  On 
the other hand, we have lots of mashups. There are lessons to be learned 
about developing software ecosystems.

My sense is that PeerPoint is based on a set of premises and approaches  
that simply don't work anymore.


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra

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