Jibbering Musings

Scene: A typical office, two people Bob the project manager, and Jim the javascript muppet.

Bob: So Jim, we’ve got another project needing a thin client frontend to run on the desktops here, perfect for another of your HTML weblike frontends.
Jim: Oh cool, I’ve been wanting to try out XForms for that.
Bob: XForms? what are they then, I thought HTML, CSS and javascript was what you did?
Jim: Yeah but I’ve heard about these new things called XForms, apparently they make everything more semantic and easier to maintain.
Bob: You’ve heard? you realise we only have three weeks development in the schedule?
Jim: Oh I’m sure it’s simple, I met a guy in a pub who told me how easy it was, I’m sure I can pick it up.
Bob: Okay, if you’re sure the benefits are worth it, this will work with all our current desktops right?
Jim: Well we’ll need to roll out a new XForms client to all of them.
Bob: Ah, so which client do we use?
Jim: Well, there’s lots to choose from, I’ve heard there are more XForms clients when the standard came out than anything else, so it must be good?
Bob: So which is the best?
Jim: I dunno, give me a few days research time and I’m sure one will turn up.
Bob: So how much is that going to cost us?
Jim: I dunno, There doesn’t seem to be pricing info for most of the XForms players, still the beancounters aren’t doing much at the moment, they can find that out.
Bob: Hmm, but there’s plenty of examples of other people using these XForms in web solutions for us to learn from, right?
Jim: Not that I’ve found, but there’s a specification.
Bob: Okay… If you get hit by a bus, there’s plenty of other people out therewe can hire with the skills to maintain it though?
Jim: Don’t think so, but I’m sure it’d be easy for them to learn it too.
Bob: So, let’s recap. Instead of using the tools we’ve used to successfully roll out tens of projects and people millions, you want us to pick a new technology you know nothing about, with immature implementations that we don’t know the cost of and will need to roll out to every desktop, and there’s few examples to learn from. Then, even when you’ve written it, we won’t be able to easily hire someone to maintain it as the skills are rare, and you don’t think the risk to the project is too high?
Jim: Sure, it’ll be fine, I need to learn the technology sometime right?

Bob walks away and picks up the phone.
Bob: Harry, call up HR, we need a new javascript muppet, this one’s gone a bit crazy.