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Brendan Tompkins [MVP] » When a Little Development Knowledge can be a Dangerous Thing.
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When a Little Development Knowledge can be a Dangerous Thing.

So I had this meeting with a developer yesterday that we're having to do some Web Services integration with.  This guy was interesting to say the least.  Now, I think that this guy probably is a coder.  But, have you ever seen that Brendan Fraser movie where his parents keep him locked in a fallout shelter, and one day he emerges with absolutely no knowledge of what has happened in the last 35 years?  Well, let's just say that it may as well have been this guy locked in the fallout shelter.  His knowledge of Web Application development was about 10 years old.   Here's a snippet of one conversation we had:

So what platform are you using to develop this web application?
Him: It's an ISAPI dll.  All of the HTML pages are dynamically generated by the dll.
Um.  Wow..  So what programming language are you using?
Him: Delphi.
Oh.  Have you used the Delphi for the .NET framework?
Him: No, haven't had the time to check into it.
(thinking: that's because you're wasting so much time developing ISAPI dlls in Delphi!) Yeah.  I know how that feels.

So, this guy can obviously figure stuff out, but he's down such a one-way dead-end street, that it's scary!  Take this other conversation we had about how we're going to implement our Web Services:

So, I'm seeing a service with three methods here.
Him: Well, can you make me one service that I can call and pass a string that instructs the server how to respond?
(thinking: That would be a nightmare!  Can you imagine testing that? Maintaining it?) Um. No, I'm not really comfortable with that. 
Him: I've already got a bunch of services running that way. I've implemented some Credit union software that way.  I've invented my own format that you just have to parse out to figure out what I need. 
(thinking: holy shit!  Is he serious?  Why is he even using a Web Service? Remind me not to join any Credit Unions!) The more I think about it, no we're not going to do it that way.  I'm going to provide you with one service with three strongly-typed methods.
Him: Okay.  That's fine.  Just more work for me, that's all.
(thinking:  Oh, I feel sooo bad for you, you lazy *#&$#) Yeah, I think it'd be better in the long run.

Did I mention that he says he's a CIO?  Well, anyway.  So, we've all met developers like this.  Is there any hope for them?  What do we do?  The fact that this guy is out there giving birth to all this nightmarish code is scary!  He must be stopped!

-Brendan

Posted 06-18-2004 7:37 AM by Brendan Tompkins

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Comments

Yex wrote re: When a Little Development Knowledge can be a Dangerous Thing.
on 06-18-2004 4:18 AM
I hear ya man. Although I must admit, I *wish* I had those kinds of problems to deal with. The organization I'm currently working for isn't even *on* the web yet with the apps they have. Some of the scariest conversations I overhear some of my co-workers having often go something like this:

"Yeah, I'm not sure what I'm going to do, it seems like everyone is trying to go to the web with all of their applications lately. I don't know about any of that stuff. I'll just have to find someplace that's still working with stuff that I know."

"Something that I know" = Uniface, c/s Delphi, Fortran, VAX/XMS, blah blah blah...

I hear that and think to myself "*going* to the web?! They've already GONE to the web and left us here behind!"

The only reason I can't relate so much to your situation there is because we've not even caught up to *that* point yet. It really is sad.

I do feel for ya man, but it *could* be worse, heh.
Darrell wrote re: When a Little Development Knowledge can be a Dangerous Thing.
on 06-18-2004 4:42 AM
Well, at least you didn't let him influence *your* part of the web services. Keep him contained and you keep his damage contained. I noticed he was trying to sneak the work over onto you!
Brendan Tompkins wrote re: When a Little Development Knowledge can be a Dangerous Thing.
on 06-18-2004 4:51 AM
Yex.. Thanks for pointing out that it could be worse. I guess my problem is that this guy is using these new technologies, like webforms, services, etc. but he's not taking the time to learn any best practices... Hey we still need cutting edge fortran engineers, we just don't need them writing ISAPI dlls!
Mark wrote re: When a Little Development Knowledge can be a Dangerous Thing.
on 06-18-2004 4:56 AM
You could do what I did to JJ the intern on the SRN project. He wouldn't stop bugging me for something to code during the requirements gathering phase. "Fine, JJ, go create a web form for each of the pages we'll need." That kept him busy for a week at least.

He got so mad when I deleted them. When he asked where they went, and I told him, "oh, that was just busy work to keep you occupied" he hit the roof! hehe.
Brendan Tompkins wrote re: When a Little Development Knowledge can be a Dangerous Thing.
on 06-18-2004 4:58 AM
He he. Well, the sad thing is that it turned out that the entire SRN project was busywork for all of us, because of politics.. Buy, hey, it was one hell of a piece of software!
Yex wrote re: When a Little Development Knowledge can be a Dangerous Thing.
on 06-18-2004 5:28 AM
Good point Brendan, very true. If you *are* going to be using modern technologies for your solutions, at least use them in the way they were intended to be used...don't abuse them. I just wish I could at least convince our people to at least *use* them, heh.
Grant wrote re: When a Little Development Knowledge can be a Dangerous Thing.
on 06-18-2004 5:31 AM
I know of some people kinda like your Delphi-CIO type; they've solved the problem one way in the past and it's going to be THE way to solve it in the future. To a hammer, the whole world looks like nails.

Unfortunately, he probably has a post on his blog about the buzzword crazy guy who wants him to do all the hard work.

<plug>Invite him to the July WeProgram.Net meeting on building Web Service clients with C# and a little XMLSpy thrown in for good measure!</plug> Maybe he just a needs a little kick in the WSDL?
Steve Hebert wrote re: When a Little Development Knowledge can be a Dangerous Thing.
on 06-18-2004 5:55 AM
I think that type of CIO in the Credit Union space is not unusual. I've seen a couple situations where they get someone technical in for the first time to perform some core processing work. To make the person legally in charge of the type of work/data access they are performing they end up promoting them to CIO. I guess it's a good gig if you can get it I guess, but it's sad when it means the end of their creative growth.

I'm with Yex where most of my customers haven't heard of WebServices, much less XML. Someone asking "can you integrate with TAB delimited files" makes me think of the native american crying by the side of the road in the old 70's anti-littering campaign.
Brendan Tompkins wrote re: When a Little Development Knowledge can be a Dangerous Thing.
on 06-18-2004 6:31 AM
Grant, You are right. Funny you used the hammer/nail quote, because I just read that in a book I picked up last night and relayed it to my wife... In this book, the quote was "When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

but the opposite of this saying is also true "A basement full of woodworking tools does not a carpenter make."

I can attest to this one, if you stop by my house you'll see a bunch of failed woodworking projects scattered around. But hey, if the table's crooked, you can always bungee-cord your wine glass to it so that it doesn't fall off, right?
Delphi CIO wrote re: When a Little Development Knowledge can be a Dangerous Thing.
on 10-20-2005 3:34 PM
Actually, I code this way in order to have complete control. I have written massive systems (satellite controllers, language compilers, natural language processors, expert systems, etc) that rely on others developers (Microsoft, etc) components that have always created problems and required me to back up, remove the offending components and write to the metal. It is much faster for me to code this way and I am completely familiar with every single aspect of the architecture.

By the way, how is your knowledge of REAL bleeding edge technology? Let's talk artificial intelligence, advanced compression or encryption, biometric peripheral interfaces and minuta hashing, etc...

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