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Most overhyped software engineering technologies of the last 20 years

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Re: Most overhyped software engineering technologies of the last 20 years

#11

Post by rbanffy »

arethuza wrote: post #7
rbanffy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UML diagrams have one redeeming quality: when they allow direct full-code generation. I always saw jaws dropping when demoing ArchGenXML for making Plone products.

Some of the stupidest code I've ever seen was auto-generated from UML. People get all excited by seeing code generated from a picture and forget to check if the code produced is actually sensible or not - in most cases I've seen the code produced is abominable.

That's what I liked with ArchGenXML. The code is quite good.

At least as good as code for Plone components can be. I heard it has improved a lot since I left Plone-land, but, when I worked with it, there was a required level of confusion in your code for it to work with all layers of Zope and Plone.

I assume UML diagrams can render very clean code for Django and Zope 3.

Re: Most overhyped software engineering technologies of the last 20 years

#12

Post by acdha »

rabc wrote: post #2

I agree with UML and CASE tools, it was always a time-waster that produce too many things and never used. But I disagree with XML and OOP. XML was necessary for the first web APIs we had (they were called SOAP, in case you wasn't a developer that time). And OOP is everything you do, it's a way to write code more clear and maintainable (just forget everything about the 'reuse your code' and 'speed you development', OO…

That statement isn't strictly true as raganwald pointed out but it's also too broad: the current OOP item makes a far more defensible position: "...in the sense that we are still writing lots of new OO code instead of just plugging together reusable objects to design new systems". Using OOP to cleanly contain related code and data is far more defensible than the decades of claims that programmers would just plug things together like lego bricks, which is finally dying out but has left behind a wasteland of overly-ambitious projects which will never be used by more than one project but all carry the burden of trying to be as general as Java.

Re: Most overhyped software engineering technologies of the last 20 years

#13

Post by Isamu »

rabc wrote: post #2

I agree with UML and CASE tools, it was always a time-waster that produce too many things and never used. But I disagree with XML and OOP. XML was necessary for the first web APIs we had (they were called SOAP, in case you wasn't a developer that time). And OOP is everything you do, it's a way to write code more clear and maintainable (just forget everything about the 'reuse your code' and 'speed you development', OO…

"Over-hyped" doesn't mean the technology doesn't have merit. Both XML and OOP have great merit but were very much over-hyped for years as being always applicable and the ultimate answer for everything.

There were some fanciful things said in the past 15 years about both of these and others. Articles in Wired with apparently smart people bubbling with enthusiasm for the limitless potential. Even at the time I thought, fer gosh sakes, XML is an encoding. The really hard problems are still unsolved.

I still hear "we'll use XML" instead of concrete architectural plans, like it's a magic wand you wave over your project and all your dreams come true.

Re: Most overhyped software engineering technologies of the last 20 years

#14

Post by DanielBMarkham »

Hmmmm.

There is a difference between over-hyped and having a bitch-fest about things your boss thought was cool. Very sorry you had to do too much UML on that last project but it works very well for what it is: a universal way of diagramming parts of computer systems for purposes of communicating about them. Probably not so good as a universal spec system, or a runnable model, or any one of the 17 other things folks thought they could do with it. Same goes for a lot of this other stuff. We confuse the environment around a tool or technology with the tech itself.

Everything is overhyped. We're like that: we want magic bullets to fix all of our problems. Everything is over-applied and over-promised.

The more I think about it, the more this is a really bad, perhaps trollish, question. It does nothing to increase people's understanding, and only serves to have a place to gripe and complain. Nothing wrong with griping or complaining! As long as we all realize how subjective it is. This question assumes that there is some objective standard for being over-hyped. I don't think that premise is true. You end up with a bunch of people arguing over whether chocolate ice cream tastes good or not.

Re: Most overhyped software engineering technologies of the last 20 years

#15

Post by jamesbritt »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #10

I think the whole premise of this question is kind of... off. Just about every tool goes through a period of being hyped. That's why we use them. Show me a tool that hasn't been hyped and I'll show you a tool that not enough people know about. Complaints that things are "overhyped" are dubious. Everything is overhyped to some degree. What would an "optimal" amount of hype be, and how would you regulate it? If you und…

"Over-hyped" is over-hyped.

Re: Most overhyped software engineering technologies of the last 20 years

#16

Post by raganwald »

Isamu wrote: post #13
rabc wrote: post #2

I agree with UML and CASE tools, it was always a time-waster that produce too many things and never used. But I disagree with XML and OOP. XML was necessary for the first web APIs we had (they were called SOAP, in case you wasn't a developer that time). And OOP is everything you do, it's a way to write code more clear and maintainable (just forget everything about the 'reuse your code' and 'speed you development', OO…

"Over-hyped" doesn't mean the technology doesn't have merit. Both XML and OOP have great merit but were very much over-hyped for years as being always applicable and the ultimate answer for everything. There were some fanciful things said in the past 15 years about both of these and others. Articles in Wired with apparently smart people bubbling with enthusiasm for the limitless potential. Even at the time I thought,…

Saying "We'll use XML" about a software design is like saying "The building will use steel, concrete, and glass."

Re: Most overhyped software engineering technologies of the last 20 years

#17

Post by route66 »

raganwald wrote: post #16
Isamu wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Over-hyped" doesn't mean the technology doesn't have merit. Both XML and OOP have great merit but were very much over-hyped for years as being always applicable and the ultimate answer for everything. There were some fanciful things said in the past 15 years about both of these and others. Articles in Wired with apparently smart people bubbling with enthusiasm for the limitless potential. Even at the time I thought,…

Saying "We'll use XML" about a software design is like saying "The building will use steel, concrete, and glass."

"We'll use JSON" is the 2.0 version I ran into during a recent project. Sigh.

Re: Most overhyped software engineering technologies of the last 20 years

#19

Post by srbloom »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #14

Hmmmm. There is a difference between over-hyped and having a bitch-fest about things your boss thought was cool. Very sorry you had to do too much UML on that last project but it works very well for what it is: a universal way of diagramming parts of computer systems for purposes of communicating about them. Probably not so good as a universal spec system, or a runnable model, or any one of the 17 other things folks…

I think the way people are responding isn't helping this question. This could have been good if responders had elaborated on what was promised vs what was delivered, but instead they just list the technology and write, essentially, "this was overhyped".
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