[toronto-lisp] A Not Strictly Lisp Question

[David Penton]

Or maybe, to be frank, perhaps not a lisp question at all. So delete  
this if you are busy.

However...from the two meetings of the Toronto lisp group I have  
attended, I gather that several of you do web development, or related  
stuff. So some of you are probably knowledgeable in areas that are a  
mystery to me.

I made it CASCON today and enjoyed the session on "Practical Ontology  
Infrastructure". Of course, this topic has plenty of connections to  
things that may interest the lisp community. But that topic is not the  
source of my questions, or rather my bafflement.

Over the past ten years I have often been utterly flummoxed and not a  
little annoyed when I try to grasp what is going on in the "business  
world" of computing. At CASCON this week many of the sessions were  
about SOA (Service Oriented Architecture). The notion of SOA came to  
my attention some time ago, but although I looked it up on wikipedia  
and even read some commercial blurbs on it, I still have no damned  
idea what they are talking about. I enjoy learning things that seem  
like "computer science." But I cannot for the life of me penetrate  
this combined computing and business stuff.

 From my limited, jaded, and admittedly dated perspective, it seems we  
are subjected to a never-ending succession of questionable panaceas,  
cooked up - maybe - by marketing people. The ones that are about  
computing over the internet seem particularly offensively squishy to me.

Would anybody be willing to fill me in, perhaps not on the mailing  
list if it is too off-topic? LIke, as I struggle to learn lisp and  
such, should I really pay attention to "software as a service",  
"service oriented architecture", and so on ad infinitum?

Or should I just grow old and die of gum disease and varicose veins.  
F**k.

- Dave -



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