Robert Stackhouse wrote an excellent article on his blog titled Frameworks as a Means of Creating Transferrable Expertise. I started writing a response in the comments and ended up going off on quite a tangent. Thus, I’ve reposted parts of his article and my responses here, as well as some followup dialog.

It almost seems as if Microsoft and Sun and every other Framework author out there in the world figured out that training people is expensive, so let’s build a framework to reduce the cost of that training. It is much easier to spoon feed people than to teach them to think for themselves. Microsoft even went one step further and said, “Let’s go one better and try to get the poor schlep who doesn’t have 5 years experience to try to pay for the training themselves;let’s create a certification program.”

The alternative to Microsoft and Sun developing enterprise frameworks as large as .NET and Java is to have people still writing buffer overflows and string format vulnerabilities in C/C++. These frameworks have the huge benefit of making more secure code in many cases, as well as making it feasible for companies to even hire developers full time. If they figure that frameworks cut down development time, they are more likely to invest the money in IT in the first place, thus creating jobs for all of us.

I hardly think training is the issue here. If I had to chose between training someone to the point of proficiency in either .NET/Java or C/C++, I would chose a framework in a heartbeat. The time it would take for entry level programmers to learn C/C++ and the figure out how to be secure and develop worthwhile code would be prohibitive at best, and outright unfeasible at worst.

Certifications make sure people have basic skills and can as they claim. It all depends on the difficulty of the certification. I wouldn’t put much stock in someone with an MCP and little experience. Someone with an MCSD however I would give more attention, even if the relative experience wasn’t equal. The same goes for any IT sector – look at the Security+ (entry level) and the CISSP (serious professional).

Why is it that the same people who will ask every friend they have who the best mechanic in town is (instead of going straight to the Toyota dealer) will trust the word of a Microsoft certification over the word of a developer’s brethren or even his own code?

Again, this is context driven. Looking for a mechanic is a personal endevour that is something almost everyone deals with. Looking for a developer for a corporation is a different context entirely. By the same token, did you know that most of those dealerships won’t hire mechanics who don’t carry their companies certifications? Ford dealerships typically require a certification before they hire mechanics.

It again boils down to something akin to “you can at least perform at the minimum level we require, and we can teach you our development culture.” No two software projects are alike, but .NET is .NET, regardless of where it is used.

Granted not every development shop (even some of the ones who use Microsoft.NET) think this way. The only question is: would you rather have an employee who spends all day programing around the framework, or one that knows when to ditch the framework and look for another one or god forbid roll something from scratch?

The ones who know by instinct to ditch a framework for a more appropriate technology have most likely moved up the chain to a team lead position or management. I think we do have the problem of developers moving into management without having proper communication and management skills. We would almost never take a manager and say automatically that they would make a good developer, so why do we assume the opposite is true? Until our industry learns how to justify our software in the same manner that a machinist justifies a new lathe, we will always have this problem. I’ve seen this more times than I care to remember.

I also don’t really think we should be trying to optimize costs at a human level. Why don’t we instead invest in our employees, train them, and who knows maybe even wind up with a person who doesn’t hesitate to think for themselves and a little workplace loyalty in the end?

Again, look at it in context. Cost optimization at a human level goes on in every industry, not just software development. The salesman who sells two contracts a month will be replaced if he’s being compared to salesmen who sell 10 contracts a month. Can you guarantee that training him will ever pay off? This is the whole existance of HR and reorganization consultants. If you choose to ignore this area of optimization the organization may not recover and all the jobs will go away.

…all that being said, I agree that frameworks are not the holy grail. I think fast, core frameworks are the start and extensions to those are the way to go. There are jobs out there completely based on using things like Telerik controls, or Infragistics controls. These are build on top of a nice, extensible framework and they serve a purpose and create jobs. A company that would not be willing to develop that control themselves will be willing to pay for it and talent that can put it to efficient use for their purposes.

We are also still considered in the same boat as infrastructure services, which are not the same as software development. This is a fundamental flaw in my opinion. There are infrastructures (routers, servers, cabling, power) that is necessary AND a cost center. But software development produces “tangible” goods that can be used as a profit generator or at the very least an optimization of processes.

These are very different areas of IT but management still doesn’t separate them. We are getting closer with the advent of seperation between CIO/CTO, but few companies hire both. They are typically considered interchangable by uninformed upper management. Some even still put the CIO under the Finance department because they are seen as a cost center.

I don’t have anything really planned for this post so I’m just gong to brain dump for a while. I could start with some interesting weather updates – it’s been raining. This is really good for our area and I think I’ll get out tomorrow (weather allowing) and burn some stuff I’ve had in the back for a while.

I also attended RefreshBCS last night and had a great time getting together with local entrepreneurs as well as some speakers from Austin. The speakers were from a company called TechRanchAustin, which totes itself as a business accelerator. They made the distinction between acceleration and incubation, which I found interesting. I also got a boatload of book recommendations – the best of which I think will be The E-Myth Revisited. Several people in the crowd had read it, and re-read it, and re-re-read it, and found insight each time. It must be good if it’s got that kind of capacity to affect business over a long term.

I’ve also been rushing to get some of my consulting projects wrapped up before the baby is born. My wife is having more and more contractions each day and having a harder time getting around and taking care of things. You too can try this at home – take a full sized watermelon (~ 6 lbs), tape it to your stomach, and walk around for an hour. I guarantee you’re going to be thankful it’s not you caring that around 24/7! I know I don’t help her as much as I could with the house and whatnot, but I’m trying to get our credit cards and other debts paid off before we take on the new baby.

Back to the consulting – I’ve been learning more new systems than I can throw a stick at. Joomla, WordPress Templating, Drupal, Zend Framework, NCover, and a few more I’m forgetting I’m sure. Even with learning all these in and out I’ve been feeling like I’m neglecting other technologies and skillsets I cherish. I’ve been looking for a good way to keep my security skills up to date, but it is very difficult to stay on top of that.

I know and will always have a great foundation to build on here but the security industry as it is relies heavily on 0-day exploit knowledge. If you don’t know the exploits exist, how can you possibly protect against them? And if you concentrate on building security systems in depth for you products, how much does it end up costing you neglecting the product itself? This is something I’m struggling with currently and it’s getting the best of me at the moment. I have been balancing the projects I’m getting paid to do with the realization that I’m neglecting my business administration and my network administration. I’ts a terrible feeling. Anyone volunteer to help with this?

My motorcycle is still in the shop and they have ordered some new clutch plates for it. I’m wondering why the hell it’s taking so long – a bike shouldn’t be anywhere near complicated as a car. Especially the older ones that rely on good old nuts and bolts rather than computers and cooling systems. I’m hoping to get it back soon so I can grab a motorcycle permit up on campus and save a boatload on gas each month (again, weather permitting). The motorcycle permit costs $35/yr (with a primary vehicle permit already) and it would cost me about $5 every two weeks to fill it up. That’s in contrast to the old 2004 v6 Ford Ranger I’m driving around now which takes (at minimum) $20/week.

And finally, it’s with a sad heart that I have to say I shaved my beard. I had a good 2 weeks going on it and it was filling out nicely, but my wife really hated it. It was too short to get soft enough for her sensitive skin. We’ve made a compromise. When the baby is born, I can grow it out. I plan on documenting the process on my Picasa Web account.

Well, that’s it. By the way, all of this brain dumping idea was due to the book Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware. Go get your copy (I have to return this one to the AgileBCS library and get my own)!

I think I’ve used a play on the Wizard of Oz before but I like it and it’s suitable. Four years ago I lost dataplextechnology.com to some cyber squatters when I didn’t have enough money to renew all of my domains. Last night I remembered just in the knick of time that dataplextechnology.net was about to expire so I ran to Gandi to renew. After a bank error scare and a panic letter to the customer support email, I got the domain registered just before midnight. Horray!

Next time I won’t let it lapse. I had a misconception that if I ordered before the day it expired I would lose a few days off my registration (overlap). This isn’t the case as Gandi appends the bought time to the end of the expiration date. If you don’t have a good registrar, Gandi has been wonderful over the past 8 years and I would recommend them to anyone.

But on to the even better news. I got dataplextechnology.com back! This all falls in line perfectly with my business plan as I’m about to file for my LLC for my side work as a web/network consultant. Once that is done it’s time to start a professional website… this is harder than it seems. There is something rewarding about finishing a website for someone else, but working on your own website is a bit like mowing your grass – you have to do it but you don’t usually like it.

So someone hold me to it – I would appreciate someone yelling at me once in a while to put something meaningful up at http://www.dataplextechnology.com. Thanks!