[thelist] Must a webmaster know databases???

[Peter Small]

Hi Scott,

I have a completely different model to this because I'm thinking pure
object oriented design. The Web master as you describe would be the kiss of
death to an organisation. He/she would become indispensible and the whole
system would revolve around them and would be limited by their knowledge.
He/she would have to be killed off.

The specialists, as I visualise them, would not be the stagnated, slow
moving behemoths as you describe. To me they would be the initiators and
the pioneers: individuals or small groups, who create imaginative functions
that would be taking full advantage of the latest technology and the newest
trends. These modular functions would be the objects in an object oriented
world.

The entrepreneurial function would involve seeing these objects much the
same way as a child would see a box of Lego components. He or she would
build up a knowledge of the capabilities of these functions so as to be
able to mix and combine them in imaginative ways to provide solutions. They
would be interchangeable and expendable to facilitate a highly flexible and
adaptive system.

In other words, the entrepreneurial function would not be about getting the
specialists to create a business plan that they had devised. Instead, the
entrepreneur would take the specialist functions as they are offered and,
without changing them, put them to use as part of a modular system created
entirely out of these components.

Isn't this the way OOD works? In an object oriented system, objects don't
have to know the internal organisation of other objects. It's about sending
messages and getting functional responses to those messages. To my mind,
this means that an entrepreneur need have no knowledge of any specific
application. They are responsible only for the output result of the total
system. Their main function would be to act as the system's feedback loop.

Does that make sense to anyone?


peter
http://www.petersmall.net



>> If this attitude becomes prevelant, it would seem that the IT industry
>> might revert to a pre industrial age infra structure, where
>> you have large
>> numbers of specialist craft masters (with apprentices) who provide a
>> variety of specialist functions as services. This would not
>> seem to be the
>> best environment for the non specialist.
>>
>> This is a view I'm taking on a book I'm working on so I'd
>> appreciate any
>> comments that would counter this arguement.
>
>
>I'd liken a 'webmaster' to a small, nimble company in this context, whereas
>a specialist would be portrayed as the large behemoth conglomerate that
>moves very slowly.
>
>I think of it like this: as a specialist in one area and one area alone, it
>can be all too easy to apply that specialty to the task, regardless of
>context or need. Further, the learning curve to reach a new specialty to
>include as a core competency is very great, and would take a significant
>amount of time. A company we've come to term as "old school brick and
>mortar" would operate in much the same fashion. Consider IBM in the years
>prior to the purging of its top management and subsequent entry (and huge
>success) in the laptop market in the early 1990's. Prior to that, IBM
>epitomized the 'old school' management and operation style that prevented it
>from moving swiftly to market shifts and increased customer empowerment.
>	A Jack-of-All-Trades, on the other hand, has a base knowledge of a
>number of technologies and could have the awareness and savvy to be able to
>apply the best tool for the problem at hand. A small company that does not
>have the strict and deep trenches of management and dedicated single-track
>processes can adapt quickly to market shifts and the changing whims of their
>customers.
>
>Seen like this, a 'webmaster' then, in my mind, is much more valuable, and
>placed in the right position, can orchestrate a team of specialists. This
>leads me to a military view, where a webmaster is a general --king of theory
>and process, wielding his arsenal of specialties to rid the problem at hand.
>
>sgd
>
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