Slightly off topic .... I have been reading up on zmq (not sure how to get the 'slash' zero they use). I think an opinion that is stated in the introduction of the zmq guide sums up the main issue I have with using someone/some enterprise's server to do my computations and store my data:
""" Today we face another software crisis, but it's one we don't talk about much. Only the largest, richest firms can afford to create connected applications. There is a cloud, but it's proprietary. Our data, our knowledge is disappearing from our personal computers into clouds that we cannot access, cannot compete with. Who owns our social networks? It is like the mainframe-PC revolution in reverse. """ What I don't understand is why so many people *want* to buy into the hype of things like beacon push or platform as a service. These things appear to be low cost up front, but if you want high availability, they seem to cost more than doing it in house. My opinion is that slick marketing and slick looking websites are to appeal to non technical people to convince them to force their web developers to be locked into proprietary solutions. There is, of course, the reverse opinion, that relies on things like "virtually no one builds their own car" analogies and SaaS and PaaS allow everyone access to flashy webpages and not just those that can afford an army of web support personell. However, webpages are not like cars, and if your code is crap it will be crap no matter if you use your own server or PaaS, etc. Granted, if you know only enough pee aitch pee or rubee to hang yourself, you probably don't want to be a sysadmin for your webserver, but that is a different problem. --Jeff
