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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

#21

Post by forkandwait »

One of the best things about being a math major instead of a CS major is that it gives you a sense of history and how small the Next Big Thing probably is. One of the weird things about computer science and tech to me is that practitioners don't know what happened in 1980s, much less the theory that was developed over the last 150 years.

I would say that Boolean Algebra was actually an important advance, or the Fortran compiler (early 1960s), or a working system based on relational algebra (late 1970s). But proponents of XML/ Java/ Patterns/ Functional Programming/ Language XYZ/ NoSQL/ blah/ blah/ blah make it sound like their pet technology is a revolution, when it is usually an incremental change on tech/ theory that is very old.

And when it is an incremental change driven by corporate funded standards committees, you know it is going to be a complete cluster f*ck that is forced on the entire world by stupid IT managers with business degrees.

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

#22

Post by edw519 »

Cloud Computing - A term, like "world peace", "think outside the box", or "hooking up", that means everything and nothing at the same time.

Fourth General Languages (4GLs) - Technology to enable non-programmers to claim that they are programmers.

eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) - Primary data, along with secondary data needed to describe the primary data, all in one file, that a receiving program could act upon, as long as it knew what the secondary data meant.

Unified Modeling Language (UML) - Technology needed to add another layer of personnel to enterprise IT: people smart enough to draw but not smart enough to program.

Agile Software Development - A new name for what the fittest have used to survive for 50 years.

NoSQL - The Y2K of the 21st century, without the hard deadline. Everything will die, but no one can say why.

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) - A technology invented to make associates of Big 5 consulting firms who didn't know what they were doing appear as if they did.

Test Driven Development (TDD) - A fancy term given to tried and true methods just discovered by hipsters whose code didn't work.

Rapid Application Development - Prototyping. But no respectible IT person would buy a book with the word "Prototyping" in the title, hence the new name.

Web Frameworks - More software added to perfectly adequate existing software used by programmers depending upon their level of experience, backlog, or masochism.

Hacker - Either (a) One who breaks into other systems, (b) one who builds stuff, (c) a programmer, or (d) a groupie of one of the above.

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

#23

Post by mduerksen »

srbloom wrote: post #19
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".

I agree. It's exactly that question (promise vs. delivery and costs) which should be thoroughly explored before utilizing any technology that is advocated. That's the only way to not fall for a hollow hype.

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

#24

Post by mgkimsal »

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…

Before SOAP we had... XML-RPC. And before that other ways (albeit not as formalized) for over-network communication. XML did bring some ease of cross-platform exchange to the scene, no doubt, but don't give SOAP too much credit. :/

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

#25

Post by mayank »

forkandwait wrote: post #21

One of the best things about being a math major instead of a CS major is that it gives you a sense of history and how small the Next Big Thing probably is. One of the weird things about computer science and tech to me is that practitioners don't know what happened in 1980s, much less the theory that was developed over the last 150 years. I would say that Boolean Algebra was actually an important advance, or the Fortr…

At least some aspects of NoSQL are novel from an algorithmic perspective, so it's unfair to dismiss it as a buzzword. The underlying gossiping protocols that enable no single point of failure are fairly recent developments (Chord is a recentish gossiping algorithm if I remember correctly). Just think about writing a distributed database system without any designated master/control nodes-- all kinds of fun algorithmic problems will pop out: randomized algorithms, random graphs, distributed indices, decentralized search, ...

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

#26

Post by bitwize »

edw519 wrote: post #22

Cloud Computing - A term, like "world peace", "think outside the box", or "hooking up", that means everything and nothing at the same time. Fourth General Languages (4GLs) - Technology to enable non-programmers to claim that they are programmers. eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) - Primary data, along with secondary data needed to describe the primary data, all in one file, that a receiving program could act upon, as…

I've found that people tell me "You're not thinking outside the box" when they want me to accept something fundamentally untenable.

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

#27

Post by br1 »

edw519 wrote: post #22

Cloud Computing - A term, like "world peace", "think outside the box", or "hooking up", that means everything and nothing at the same time. Fourth General Languages (4GLs) - Technology to enable non-programmers to claim that they are programmers. eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) - Primary data, along with secondary data needed to describe the primary data, all in one file, that a receiving program could act upon, as…

I feel your text for TDD and Agile is the same used to hype the terms by the proponents.

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

#28

Post by chrisaycock »

edw519 wrote: post #22

Cloud Computing - A term, like "world peace", "think outside the box", or "hooking up", that means everything and nothing at the same time. Fourth General Languages (4GLs) - Technology to enable non-programmers to claim that they are programmers. eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) - Primary data, along with secondary data needed to describe the primary data, all in one file, that a receiving program could act upon, as…

SOAP - Remote procedure calls (maybe) that use web frameworks and XML when I all really wanted was to know the latest user setting.

CORBA - Remote procedure calls (maybe) for object-oriented programmers who can't agree which language to use, but are expected to agree on how to represent it.

Design Patterns - What to use when your language isn't up for the task.

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

#29

Post by bitwize »

rbanffy wrote: post #6

Smalltalk is now a "visual" language... And, BTW, VB.NET is, according to Wikipedia, the only language about 60% of the .NET programmers use.

With Etoys, Smalltalk is arguably more visual than languages with "visual" branding.

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

#30

Post by Xurinos »

edw519 wrote: post #22

Cloud Computing - A term, like "world peace", "think outside the box", or "hooking up", that means everything and nothing at the same time. Fourth General Languages (4GLs) - Technology to enable non-programmers to claim that they are programmers. eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) - Primary data, along with secondary data needed to describe the primary data, all in one file, that a receiving program could act upon, as…

I did not see "DSL" in your list.
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