[thelist] Enterprise Red Tape was: Web Based Employee Directory - prt 2

[Steve Lewis]

Ken Chase wrote:
> I am part of an extremely large organization and I do not have access to
> the server. I would have to pay our internal programmers for any
> customized server-side development work and they only support J2EE and
> Oracle (BTW - I can't have Notes customized).  
Thanks for sharing this detail, Ken.  It gives me a chance to raise 
another question, and this one is a bit more esoteric... and not 
directed at you personally.  I am hoping a few folks might chime in here.

> Although I fully understand that using a database and scripting language
> is the way to go for this type of product, it would be cost prohibitive
> to my department.
The J2EE model should streamline the process of reading and updating 
commonly used data.  It should cut down on the number of rogue 
servers, wasted resources, and concurrent development of redundant 
solutions to common problems.  In essence, it should bring the concept 
of code reuse out of the box and into the organization's culture.

I do believe in the J2EE model.  I believe it can serve your needs, as 
well as that of the company.  In fact, I work in a Java servlet 
environment that is transitioning to the Web Services and J2EE models 
(still).

Ken's dilemma is far from unique, however.  The question is, why is it 
so hard?  The internal programming group *should* be able to stick 
their most junior programmer on the task of 
code-reviewing-before-publishing of a simple JSP page that Ken should 
be able to customize, utilizing previously-developed-and-documented 
Web Services to extract the department's employees' info.

The sample code for the JSP that accesses the web service could be 
generated in 30 minutes by said junior programmer, and then Ken could 
manipulate the HTML presentation (per this thread) using the sample 
code as his starting point.

The email form should be able to repeat the same pattern.  What makes 
this sort of task so difficult in the real world?  How can those 
barriers be removed?

> At this point, I'm mostly looking for general inspiration with regards
> to functionality and design as opposed to recommendations for specific
> technologies.
Sorry, I don't have much in the way of suggestions myself on this 
point.  I know there are folks here who probably could.  Best of luck. 
  As I suggested before, it seems to me that you are being asked to 
build a house without using a hammer.  Now I understand that is an 
external, political, requirement.

regards,
Steve Lewis