AlexThomas

My main claim to fame is as contributor to the main OMG specs, particularly IIOP and CORBASecurity, thanks to a lengthy stint as ICL's representative there.

Oh yes, XP.... I think XP has many good ideas about Process, but avoids key design issues about platform, environment and so on which can of course have great impact on the success of a project. People should be architecting their systems so that the 'business logic' or meat of the application is expressed at as high a level as possible - this is what CORBA, and now Application Servers, are trying to achieve, but they have some way to go, and the self-imposed distinctions between language, platform and API are not helping. Key factors here will be dynamic languages (like Python or Smalltalk), flexible platforms (sort of ORBs with plugins, sometimes referred to as Meta-Object systems) and a common approach to building operational (transactional) and analytical (query-based) applications.

More pontificating in due course!

Alex

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