A tale of two cultures.
My recent stuff has provoked some diametrically opposed reactions. Responding to this column, Dan Kegel wrote:
Jon, you've been drinking too much XML / web services kool-aid. Only clueless analysts and those who wish they could program, but can't, think there's anything novel about "web services". Anything you can do with XML can be done more simply without it; the standards documents associated with XML and "web services" are absolutely mind-numbing. In the meantime, real programmers are getting real work done, and ignoring the analysts.
... [Jon's Radio]
It's true that "real programmers are getting real work done." However, that's not sufficient to justify the status quo.
Today, in most organizations, there is a growing backlog of "real work" that is not getting done by the programming department. There is also a large latent demand for business process automation in most organizations that is not being served, because "real programmers" cannot meet this demand cost-effectively. And the recent surge in outsourcing and offshoring suggests that many US businesses are losing faith in the ability of their own "real programmers" to deliver cost-justified products and services.
In the future, the highest and best use of "real programmers" may not be to create systems and applications that automate business processes. Instead, "real programmers" will be asked to use their technical talents to create infrastructure, and then to create atop that infrastructure a set of interoperable tools that can be used by non-programmers to automate their businesses and their lives. Business systems and services, automating business logic, would then be built, in whole or large part, by non-technical people, using intuitive tools created by "real programmers".
What role will XML and Web Services play in this new world? XML and Web Services will be key parts of the infrastructure that can and should make it feasible for "real programmers" to provide intuitive, interoperable tools for use by non-technical people.
Something along these lines, it seems to me, would represent an appropriate division of labor between the relatively limited number of "real programmers" vs. the much greater number of non-programmers who need to automate their daily work, and are tired of waiting for "real programmers" to do it.
8:24:57 AM 
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