Remembering History

Distributed Systems

History a little closer to home

Distributed Systems

Web Services (WS-*)

Cross-language/platform

Standard marshalling layer

Widespread industry/vendor support

Extensive horizontal services

Buzzword of the day: 2002-2008

Distributed Systems

JavaEE/Java2 Enterprise Edition

Java platform (cross-platform/OS)

Standard marshalling layer

Widespread industry/vendor support

Extensive horizontal/vertical services

Buzzword of the day: 2000-2005

Distributed Systems

CORBA

Cross-language/platform

Standard marshalling layer

Widespread industry/vendor support

Extensive horizontal services

Buzzword of the day: 1996-1998

Distributed Systems

DCE OSF RPC

Cross-language/platform

Standard marshalling layer

Widespread industry/vendor support

Extensive horizontal services

Buzzword of the day: 1992-1994

MORAL

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it --George Santanyana

Lessons

Learning from the past

Lessons

Interoperability is crucial from the start

Lessons

Vendor goodwill is crucial on an ongoing basis

Lessons

Distributed objects yield bad models

Lessons

Start from the middle

Lessons

Recognize the flaws of the marshalling layer(s)

Lessons

RPC programming style has implicit liabilities

Lessons

It's all just middleware

Fallacies

What are these again?

Fallacies

Fallacies are...

widely-believed falsehoods

incorrect assumptions

lovingly-endorsed "alternative facts"

mistakes that are all too easy to repeat

"anti-patterns"

Fallacies

To put it in Deutsch's own words...

"Essentially everyone, ... makes the following assumptions.

"All turn out to be false in the long run and all cause big trouble and painful learning experiences."

Fallacies

In theory...

... once you know about them, you can avoid them

In practice...

... "Everyone makes these assumptions"

largely because they're easy to make

and they help us avoid hard truths

and painful realizations/pain points

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it --George Santanyana

Conclusions

The future isn't set in stone

Conclusions

The future isn't set in stone

But don't repeat the mistakes of the past

Conclusions

The future isn't set in stone

But don't repeat the mistakes of the past

And don't let the vendors oversell you on the tech

Credentials

Who is this guy?

Architect, Engineering Manager/Leader, "force multiplier"

Principal -- Neward & Associates

http://www.newardassociates.com

Educative (http://educative.io) Author

Performance Management for Engineering Managers

Author

Professional F# 2.0 (w/Erickson, et al; Wrox, 2010)

Effective Enterprise Java (Addison-Wesley, 2004)

SSCLI Essentials (w/Stutz, et al; OReilly, 2003)

Server-Based Java Programming (Manning, 2000)