On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 10:50:14 -0500, Michael T. Tangorre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > A little arrogant of you to say considering you aren't aware of everyone's > abilities. I am sure many of us could pick up on it and just because it is > challenging does not mean it is impossible. Plus, as a programmer, > challenges are what keeps our jobs interesting! C++ was hard when I first > was learning it, now its not too bad.
This is one of those extremely rare occasions when I find myself in agreement with Micha. This isn't just a technology issue, there's a lot of application design considerations behind this stuff and it *is* hard. Like OO is hard. Sure, a few folks get it straight away and some folks struggle and eventually get enough of it to become competent but most people don't (they *think* they get it but...). Google Maps and so on requires more than competence. Stuff like that is not within the reach of the average programmer. Sorry, but that's a fact of life. Scott Meyers (of "Effective C++") summed it up nicely many years back by saying there are three types of programmers: private, protected and public. The private guys are the gurus who build the really cool foundation stuff. The protected guys package that up and make usable tools and libraries. The public guys build applications with those tools and libraries. He said the real problem is that we as an industry have not accepted this 'layering' of programmer skills and we don't structure projects accordingly - so we don't leverage the private / protected skills properly. It's not always a popular view but it's also shared by Joel Spolsky to some extent. During his "fireside chat" last night he talked about successful methodologies and said that they all rely on a "magic happens here" which is where smart people solve hard problems. He said that you cannot simply throw a load of "grunt" programmers at a project and expect it to succeed. Micha is just saying don't promise your boss you can write an application like Google Maps. Start small (and make sure you test in every browser to make sure your application degrades gracefully if it doesn't work perfectly). -- Sean A Corfield -- http://www.corfield.org/ Team Fusebox -- http://www.fusebox.org/ Got Gmail? -- I have 50, yes 50, invites to give away! "If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive." -- Margaret Atwood ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Discover CFTicket - The leading ColdFusion Help Desk and Trouble Ticket application http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=48 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:199362 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
