The Mountain And Its Rainforest
Making Computer Do Things...
Published on February 11, 2004 By Hans Rabani In Software Development
It used to be, very compact. Years ago, if anyone could write the least number of codes to make a prog, he is the Grand Kahuna. But, while everything else in this world gets smaller, faster and leaner, how come application development don't. How comes you have to get SDKs and/or 3rd party libraries to get your code to work. But they don't actually make your prog smaller. In fact most progs nowadays have bigger footprint and even if they don't, their links to libraries could put any octopus to shame.

So ok, Microsoft handholds us in using its tools to come up with progs that works in Windows but why is it getting more "complicated". Sure, granted they say you could go to market in a lot less time but it is not as soon as it used to be. Or maybe, someone is just making things complicated so as the complication, makes money for someone, while us developers burn midnights to make that happened.

And the coding nowadays, its really mouse coding. Just drag and drop applets, stick a line or two to set the oop connections and wallah, you have an app. Still, its nowhere near to market.
Comments
on Feb 13, 2004
Why is memory/disk footprint important ? Why should we value it as a goal? Disk is cheap. Memory is cheap.

It is getting more complicated because users expect more features (with respect to enterprise software). You do not get security, scalability, failsafe, multiplatform, internationalizable software for free. API is king in application development. With respect to time-to-market - that is a tough nut to crack and will come with maturity in the industry - but it may take a long while (30 - 50 years). We are still learning what we want software to "do".

I don't know anyone that codes with a mouse, but perhaps we are in slightly different domains.