From: Chad Perrin Date: 2006-09-05T05:22:55+09:00 Subject: Re: Joel Spolsky on languages for web programming On Tue, Sep 05, 2006 at 04:49:19AM +0900, Richard Conroy wrote: > On 9/4/06, Joseph wrote: > >Vidar, > > > >Risk Management IS NOT equivalent to FEAR, in that you are right. > > > >However, as I said earlier, no SIGNIFICANT progress can be expected > >without some risk. Risk Management is about dealing with risk, not > >eliminating it. > > I would have thought that eliminating risk would be a job well done > by someone responsible for Risk Management? No? If you eliminate risk entirely, you end up guaranteeing failure -- for some definition of risk. Any definition of risk that does not result in that end is either meaningless or effectively impossible to eliminate. > > I am seeing an awful lot of chatter here along the lines that technology > decision makers are insipid jobsworths who fall in line behind the big > tech brands because they are afraid to stick their neck out. ie. the only > reason > they are not picking Rails is because they don't have the stones for it. My take is that people who choose a technology based on popularity rather than knowledge of the technology is an insipid jobsworth who falls in line behind the big tech brands because (s)he is afraid to stick his/her neck out. Those who choose a technology based on knowledge of the technology, on the other hand, is a smart guy that should be making a lot of money, whether the ultimate decision is to go with J2EE, Rails, Common Lisp, VB.NET, or Wasabi. Of course, I think VB.NET is unlikely to be a good choice outside of extremely pathological edge-cases, but that's beside the point. > > Has anyone ever considered the fact that many of these decision makers > are very serious, ethically minded people? They take their job seriously > and feel a strong responsibility to make a correct technology decision. . . . but if they end up making a decision based on the criteria Joel Spolsky advocated in the essay that started all this discussion, they're either malicious or incompetent. -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] "There comes a time in the history of any project when it becomes necessary to shoot the engineers and begin production." - MacUser, November 1990