Lumber jack joke
E-BUSINESS IN THE ENTERPRISE – Web services: IT churn or IT revolution?:
I will leave you this week with a joke that illustrates the risks inherent in treating a new technology (Web Services) as an old technology revisited (RPC).
A lumberjack walks into a hardware shop and explains that his manual saw method limits him to felling four trees a day. He expresses an interest in one of those new chain-saws he has heard so much about and read about in the trade magazines.
The shop sells a chain-saw to the delighted lumberjack and promises him a five-fold increase in productivity. A week later, a very tired looking lumberjack comes back into the shop looking for his money back. He claims that with the chain-saw, he cannot fell more than six trees a day.
The shop assistant takes the chain-saw and starts it up to examine it.
The lumberjack steps back in amazement and exclaims: “What’s that noise?”
Sometimes, the real value in a new technology lies in looking at things differently. Bear this in mind the next time you hear a developer waxing lyrical about the benefits of putting a web services wrapper on an existing application or on an existing integration architecture.
