WS-* != SOA.

WOA is a form of SOA, by definition. Gartner/Gall states: WOA = SOA + WWW + REST

REST and SOA are not diametrically opposed. An SO architecture can also be RESTful.

In the short-term I think you’re correct, all of the current popular technologies are just variations on each other. The real problems, the fatal ones, are people and process. It’s not what we are building that is failing, it is how we are doing it. But, that’s a dirty little secret that programmers don’t want to mention, isn’t it?

Any technology that proposes to be a silver bullet because it breaks everything down into manageable chunks, fails precisely because the chunking system fails to scale. A few little pieces is reasonable complexity, a million of them is a nightmare. Again and again success has been proclaimed, when in fact for any real system, it only intensifies the problems. The mistake: building it is only a fraction of the battle, fixing it when it breaks is the real problem we need to solve.

Paul.
http://theprogrammersparadox.blogspot.com

You’re opinion about the common denominator of failures being ‘the usual’ and the level of incompetence of the management team is astonishingly ill-informed! It’s not JUST incompetence… in fact I’d put a bigger bite of this particularly fruity cherry into a few personality failure types:

1.1. “I think I know about IT cos my mate’s an architect, plus! I’ve got a family webpage AND I coded 20 years ago before I became a manna-ja”.

ii. “Careful when I turn round in case I hit you with my obvious agenda. Oh, and excuse me while I try and extracate myself from the derriere of my solution enterprise trek architect consultant adonis and new bestest mentor/pal who’s sold you the sucker you are with his techy sexy goodness”.

18: >- “Holy sh*t, I can’t believe they didn’t realise that past my amazing interview charisma and confidence, I’m a borderline sociopath who seems to somehow fly under the radar of the people who should fire me before I burn the place to the ground.”

If there’s a big spaghetti monster in the sky may he bless the ‘experienced’. Great article and comment, thanks!.

Maybe the biggest problem with SOA is how it was swallowed and re-sold as the solution to all IT’s problems — and this time, not just the latest airplane-seat-pocketed business-at-30000-feet overview don’t-get-stuck-in-the-details magazine-approved panacea, but this time really, the one true one, the one to end all trouble, the one to free us to do what we’ve always wanted to do (whatever that is); oh, how the shiny, shiny bullet shines! No more integration issues, no more duplicate (yet somehow conflicting) data, hell, we could even get rid of those snotty local developers and offshore everything to Lower East Calcutta when everything’s just services.

Ideas like SOA are dangerous in that they seem so simple, they slip so easily into big wigs’ heads, where they inhibit seratonin re-uptake a bit, from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, until results equivocate, the ever-present shadow of doubt darkens, and the shine dulls on the big wigs’ big shots as even bigger shots watch them miss their mark; this is the dark night of the IT director’s soul, which lasts — unfortunately, I suppose — only until the next new thing twinkles out of some vendor-sponsored, high-concept summary in some evil, vendor-sponsored, high-concept so-called trade rag.

I appreciate your realistic, informed, and historical perspective. You have my sympathies.