Dreamsongs Wiki

WhyFrameworksFailed

Yes, there are a lot of frameworks around, but the original promise of well done application frameworks revolutionizing the way applications would be created didn't come true in the industry IMHO.

May be customizable applications (such as SAP) have taken the role, often without being object-oriented in their customization models.

May be it is because it needs people like RalphJohnson or ErichGamma to craft a framework that is usable by others.

I would be interested in hearing opinions, if that is not too far away from the original topic of this wiki.

--PeterSommerlad.

Reuse is more of an economic problem than a technical one. The technical problems are interesting and hard, but lots of people solve them but ignore the economic problems.

Eclipse is a good example. The technical problems are not all 100% solved, because it is still complex, though EricGamma and company are constantly improving it. But it would not have succeeded if it did not have a big company behind it who both paid for it and promoted it. To make sure it got adopted, IBM gave it away, and it looks like it will be successful.

SAP is another example of how economics dominates technology. Everybody who uses it tells me that it is hard to customize, but it still sells very well because it is good enough and it has an important place in the market.

If we want to help OOPSLA-goers to make an impact in the world, maybe we need more tutorials on marketing and communication. But they probably wouldn't take them. -RalphJohnson

Would not stick to WhyFrameWorksFailed. Other good things 'failed' too. Often -- see Ralph's remark about it being more of an economical problem than a technical -- when trying to introduce improvements, we forget that it will get 'worse before it gets better'. We need to invest. Product line engineering efforts fail, ... We forget, or chose not to mention this 'worse before better dynamic' often because we are too eager to push our technology, idea...

I am working (with students from MIT) on a project that studies these dynamics. Interesting applications in our field. Front end work, importance of architecture, impact of validation work...

Hence my suggestion to add Project dynamics to the list of call for submissions. If so, I would love to review and could get help from the System Dynamic society. -- Martine Devos

I don't think frameworks have failed. It is just that they require an investment and a commitment and a real need. Clients I work with develop frameworks and domain models. Some obviously do a better job than others at this. I think that we can all think of cases where frameworks have gone bad, but I have seen frameworks both small and large grained developed by companies who are building software that has an expected lifespan of years (not months). RebeccaWirfsBrock

It's NextBigThing mania. Frameworks didn't solve the world,

and people timed out. It's the short attention span problem,

the people moved on. Maybe it's time to try again. But they have to be new, because new counts. Sometimes it helps to have a language too, but then people get irritated if too many compete.

Ditto Operating Systems and Diagram Notations. It's Conway's

Game of Life played out with ideas. But we could try rebirth:

they're not Frameworks, they're um, Software Nervous Systems. :-)

RobertBiddle