software that changes easily

I just read a blog : http://www.thoughtclusters.com/2011/01/software-for-multiple-customers/,
which talks about making software easy to change.

I think what he misses is that there are many levels at which the software can be made easy to change.
I think the level he is talking about is writing generic code, which allows developers to change the database implementation, or writing various configurable options.

If you do these things, it will take longer to go to market as the writer remarks.

You can however do other things, which will make the software easy to change.

• A programming languages that allows changes to be made easily and safely
• A powerful SCM tool that the developers actually know how to use.
• tests that actually matter to the functionality of the product
• A release process that has a fast track for critical changes
• A lightweight release process

All of these things will make it easy to change your software, and therefore responsive to the customers needs.

BPEL is not programming

In the brilliant MIT lectures (and book) Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, they talk about how to rate the worth of programming languages.

The two criteria are abstraction and combination.

• Simply put, a good/powerful/useful language will allow you to use abstraction to simplify complex processing; ie hiding the details, while making the processing more general.
• A good language will allow you to combine the language components in meaningful ways, that represent the relationship of those components. Good combination allows you to combine the user defined abstractions in the same ways as the built in language components. 
• When abstraction and combination feed off each other, when you can abstract on the combination and combine abstractions; this is when you have a great language.

As this SOA guru says, BPEL isn't really programming.

The only kind of abstraction at all, is making a whole new service. Using the JDeveloper BPEL view, you can hide the details of the verbose xml source code; But then all you see is an overly simplified 'pictures of boxes' representations. For example an "assignment" block, with an optional user defined name. Simplified, yes; but not actually abstracted.
The lack of abstraction affects what little combination options there are.
BPEL gives you variables with XML types tied to your schema, other services which you can call, variable assignments, java code blobs, xsl transform, some simple exception handling, scoped blocks, and very simplistic control structures (if/else and loop), as well as a parallel block.

That may seem like a reasonable set of built in features, in particular the parallel block, but without subroutines or functions of any sort, without structures or objects; the kinds of combination are simplistic rather than simplified.
Each basic component can only be combined in prescribed ways with certain other built in components. This means that for example, the only data type is XML variable, so all of the transforms and assignments only operate on that one thing.
With no way to define new data types or functions, the kinds of combination are limited to the built in components, and the hard coded ways that they interact.

This language simplification doesn't even achieve the elusive idea of a "business person" being able to program in it. The overly simplistic nature of the language means that even programmers have a hard time with it.

A better way to attempt the non-programmer doing programming would be to develop an internal DSL, for the actual business domain. BPEL is not even close to something that high level. And it's not capable of building such a thing.

I don't think it actually deserves to be called a programming language.

It really does deserve the name BHell.

tablets are not taking over

Gah!, even paul graham has bought into the "tablets are taking over" bullshit.

I'm getting sick of this assumption that anything that apple brings out will be a complete success, and will change the computing world.

Tablets (whoever is making them) are just the next step for mobile phones in becoming more like the general computing device that most people have on their desk, or their lap.

The truth is, it was mobile phones that could do more than just make calls (ie feature phones), that really changed the mobile computing world.

According to wikipedia, in 2009 83% of all phones (in the US) were feature phones. It's only when a technology is ubiquitous, that its impact is fully felt.

And now, it's official; everyone in the world has a mobile phone, a fair number being feature phones: http://hothardware.com/News/ITU-Finds-2-Billion-Internet-Users-Worldwide-5-Billion-Mobile-Subscriptions/ . Ok not actually everyone (number of subscriptions != number of subscribers), but nearly one for every person.

It was when everyone started carrying a device around which enables one to take a video of an event, and send that video to all one's friends, or tweet to the world their every single thought and action; that's when things changed.

After that point, you are merely improving the user interface, adding more power, bigger screen, faster internet connection. It's all incremental (potential) improvement from there forward, not the giant leap forward that everyone seems to think it is.

I don't think that mobile devices which are deliberately crippled by having no call/sms/mms functionality, will have much of a future. This includes all "mobile" computers. It won't be long before "phones" have the computing power to do everything a netbook can do, and at that point, most people can do all of their computing on that one device.

These mobile computing devices will still just be called "phones" by most people, because whatever the device is, you'll still be carrying it around with you in your pocket like you carry your phone now. Even if you are using it for everything except making "telephone calls".