Reganwald had an interesting post about business programming the other day. In it he discussed the idea that business programming is about to become a lot more interesting. He suggests that business programming will require knowledge of the more science-y aspects of computer science, such as “recursion, operations on data structures, code generation, and other topics that are often derided as being “unnecessary” in a business programming context.” I tend to agree, and if I’m (he’s, we’re, something like that) wrong, then I’d venture to say that business is wrong, not us.
He does a better job of explaining it both in that post and in another where he implicitly comments on the state of enterprise programming, and how the “immature” Ruby programmers and their kin are making things difficult for the hypothetical Java programmer.
However, more to the point of this post, is the question at the end.
Name three features from public web ‘sites’ like Google, Amazon, and YouTube (you can pick any site or sites you like) that will make the jump to business applications in 2007.
He asks it in reference to a job opening that someone has, and readers are supposed to e-mail their answer in. I am getting ready to interview for someone else, so I decided against trying for this. However I still wanted to give my answer to the question.
- Usability
- User-Generated Content (UGC)
- Tags
Usability
Users, especially web-savvy users are beginning to see the enjoyment, fun, and usefulness of sites like Gmail, Google Reader, and Flickr. I think that users will start to expect this type of interaction from all applications in their life, and be disturbed by business applications that try to play by different rules.
User-Generated Content
Companies will have to recognize the value and knowledge held by their employees (and possibly users). I imagine it will start with a single company opening up, and then it will become a landslide. Knowledge is too valuable to have it locked up in silos, especially if those silos are free to walk away.
Tags
Tags, keywords, call them what you will. The fact is: they work. Whats best about them, and what separates them from categories and keywords, is that they are defined at publishing and post-publishing. This allows tremendous adaptation that can’t be achieved with structured hierarchical categorizing. If I want to tag something, it just requires a database change, not a folder change. Yes, this is possible with keywords and similar methods, but the attitude is different. I think it is in the same way that Web 2.0 is different than DHTML. Same technology, different feel.
Conclusion
Only time will tell how this will all play out. It’s a cliche, but it’s true. Meanwhile, I think your going to see exciting improvements, and perhaps convergence of business and consumer technology. With that, you’ll probably see changes in thinking from the top to the bottom of companies. If a company doesn’t change, well, there’s always the Titanic.
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