Niclas Hedhman wrote:
Some people don't like the 'rigidness' of strong contracts and says we will
limit our choice. Damn right!! It is necessary to limit the choices. BUT, it
doesn't mean we can't evolve the contracts later, or introduce new contracts.
That is completely within the scope of strong contracts.
My previous post lists some of the contractual areas that I can see that we
need to tighen up, one of them being "Component Requirements Extension
Specification" which is all about a specification around how to create and
evolve specifications in a "Future Compatible" way.
The fluffy hippie days are over, time to get organized, time to become
efficient, and time to serve our users more than our egos.
* Stringent but extendable component contracts in various areas.
* Leading to self-contained components
* Leading to remarkable tool support
* Leading to flourishing number of components.
There is a major difference between rigid and controlled contracts. There is
a major difference between FS and meeting needs. If what you are proposing
isn't so much a dictatorship of contracts but a reasonable set of contracts
that control access points then +1. However, I still use EJBs as an example
of an overspecified product that still only provides marginal compatibility
between containers. You feel like you are in a straight-jacket, but you still
don't have the promise of compatibility on the level that they are advertised.
I am all in favor of *controlled* contracts. They provide a reasonable
foundation to build with, and yet still alow for some amount of flexibility.
No-one on this list has ever advocated complete hippy free-bird approach to
development. I don't think that has ever been a question.
The major question is how tight to make the contracts. To provide a useful
physical analogy, many bolts on an engine are specified to only be torqued
so much. If they are torqued to much (tightened down for our ESL folks),
then the bolt will either break or cause damage to the engine. If they are
not torqued enough, then it will come loose and cause damage to the engine.
When there is a spec that specifies the amount of torque to be applied to a
bolt, you can reasonably change the bolt for something cheaper and less
expensive than the original manufacturer's equipment as long as it can handle
the load. A component contract should be like that. Not too strict (too much
torque) and not too loose (not enough torque).
I think that is where we seem to be talking accross each other. You come off
as sounding like you favor totalitarian contracts when I favor something that
doesn't restrict me too much. The definition of "too much" is different
depending on the contract in question. I tend to find that it isn't so much
the strength of the contract that is inconvenient but where the contract is
drawn.
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