Damn, I’ve been in a foul mood recently. Finally, Web services folks are admitting (not in so many words, of course) many of their mistakes – mistakes that I’ve been pointing out to them since 1999 – and I’m not able to celebrate. *sigh*
The job hunt hasn’t been going well. Interviews inevitably end up on the topic of Web services, where I’m basically given a couple of minutes to make my case… which, as you might expect given how long it’s taken the industry (or at least a particularly bright subset thereof) to come this far, doesn’t go well. Do I spend 40 seconds on software architecture, another 40 on desirable properties of multi-agency network-based systems, and wrap up with REST vs. SOA/WS? Or do I hazard a guess that the interviewer is familiar with the first two and commit all two minutes to the latter? Of course, it doesn’t matter either way, because there’s no chance in hell of successfully summarizing 7 years of arguments into 2 minutes. Couldn’t these companies at least have somebody interview me who’s familiar with this debate? Most of the ones I’ve talked with have people who were part of that debate, ferchrisakes! *sigh*
On the upside, I have managed to craft quite an elevator pitch involving getRealtimeStockQuote, getStockQuote, and GET. But even if I manage to get that point across (which does happen), nobody’s yet managed to convert that minor epiphany to a broad appreciation of the uniform interface. I watch their eyes, and you can see the exact moment where they give up trying to figure it out for themselves, and instead fallback to the familiarity of “conventional wisdom”. *sigh*
Anyhow, despite things not going well with most of the 14 companies I’ve interviewed with, it looks like my quest might finally be coming to an end (the good kind 8-). Stay tuned.
Tags: soa, webservices, rest.
no comment until now