Subject: Re: corba or sockets?
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: 03 Nov 2000 02:17:46 +0000
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3182206666752841@naggum.net>

* Jon S Anthony <jsa@synquiry.com>
| You either didn't understand this part before or for some reason
| actually believe that even with this piece considered the point made
| still makes little to no sense.

  I considered it a fairly unintelligent point to make.  It is a given
  that we do not set out to waste resources.  If you have to argue
  against people who do, that is certainly not my problem, but I find
  it oddly amusing to watch people who make such assumptions about
  others, as the only place this acquired stupidity can grow is where
  there is utter disregard for technical decisions.

| I believe my view of analyzing the tradeoffs of "build vs buy" in
| this area and makeing choices based on firm technical requirements
| and value added is exactly the correct way to proceed in such cases.

  Of course.  The interesting question is, however, what would make
  you change your mind, not what makes you convinced you are right.
  for all I know or care, you could be psychologically impelled to
  defend your choice and work hard to rationalize it after the fact.

| Perhaps a major difference here is that your business is not product
| centered/oriented, whereas ours is.

  Another fairly unintelligent point.  The question is which products,
  if this makes an interesting distinction, which I don't think it does.

  I think the explanation for our differences in view (and the reason
  you are not really listening) is that you seem to be venture capital
  funded, while we're making and spending our own money and can afford
  research that does not contribute to the first quarter bottom line.
  This is one of the reasons I'm working for a very solid company and
  have rejected golden-edged job offers from venture capital-funded
  pies in the sky.  I don't need bonuses or stock options to enjoy my
  work here, and I do see the hoping for that big cash hand-out as a
  huge misfeature where it is offered the employees.  I do not play
  the lottery or bet on horses, either.  We have a product that sells
  well, has significant growth potential, and I'm free to do whatever
  I think can contribute to that growth, including going away for a
  year to do weird stuff that they trust me implicitly to be good for
  the company, work on and with Common Lisp, etc.  Consequently, I
  find your attitude both condescending and ignorant at the same time.

  We live in a time when information technology is seen as magic by
  people who have only figured out that there is gold somewhere, but
  not how to find it or encourage anybody to find it.  I have extreme
  distaste for venture capital in such an ignorant climate.  If you
  are indeed venture capital-funded and have chosen CORBA because you
  think you'll avoid some expenditures tha would scare your investors
  and leave you stranded, I'd have to put your analysis in the "play
  it safe" category, rather than "play it intelligently, long range",
  and I am no longer impressed with your choice of CORBA and what you
  claim it does for you.

  Simply put: I have come to doubt that you have the resources to make
  intelligent choices, but have to make choices based on insufficient
  data and cannot afford to go wrong.  Instead of being able to afford
  to go wrong with your own money, a venture capitalist keeps a lot of
  people on a taut leash and while he can afford to go wrong quite
  often to make it big on a few, each of his "puppies" have to show
  early signs of success or be wasted.  This isn't _investment_ in my
  view, it's playing the lottery with other people's jobs and brains.
  Lotteries don't do it for me.  I find no thrill in accidents.
  
#:Erik
-- 
  Does anyone remember where I parked Air Force One?
                                   -- George W. Bush