[service-orientated-architecture] Polemical Exchanges in this Group

[Gervas Douglas \(gmail\)]

In the last few weeks I have had two complaints submitted to me by members against other members.  The first contended that a certain respected (well, at least by me!) contributor was biased against certain products.  There's a surprise.  I have yet to meet an informed techy who was not predisposed more to one product line or technology than another.  I like to exercise a  very light touch in moderating Groups and in general will only block a message if it is offensive or totally irrelevant in my judgement.  That is why you do not see many postings in this Group inviting you to hang a Rolex around the enlarged subject of another spamail.   I do discourage billboarding, by which I mean blatant marketing spiel pushing a product.  However, there are valid reasons why people should believe in the virtues of products and there is no reason to interdict a sincere appreciation of such products or technology per se, provided it is within the criteria I have just mentioned.  For example, if someone in this Group were to contend in so many words that Java was mannah from heaven and .NET was crap, a Microsoft supporter or employee would be fully entitled to refute that statement with an argument producing the relevant comparative facts.   I have also recently had a complaint that a certain individual is overly promoting a certain technology as a universal SOA solution against all others.  The complainant is not happy that I tolerate this and is suggesting that this turns many of you off and that amny of you will abandon the Group in consequence.  Obviously this would be unfortunate.  Some of you may recall the epic battles between Seán McGrath (in the XML corner) and David Forslund (in the CORBA corner).  You may also recall Mark Baker's (in the REST corner) skirmishes with the WSDL/SOAP/UDDI gangs.  Jeff Schneider has also been known to put the odd contentious boot in to our general entertainment (BTW< it is a long time since we heard from Jeff - are you still there?).  My point is that all these gentlemen argued their case with great conviction whilst maintaining requisite levels of politeness and impersonal address.   My next point is very simple: if you object to someone's arguments for whatever reason - answer back!  Just take the trouble to observe common courtesies (which is very rarely a problem with this Group) and hopefully we will all learn from the debate.  What I am not prepared to do is to censor automatically any stance that deviates from that oxymoron "conventional wisdom" as laid down by the major vendors and their more sycophantic media people.   We look forward to wisdom emerging from polite conflict.   Gervas SPONSORED LINKS Computer software Computer aided design software Computer job Soa Service-oriented architecture YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS  Visit your group "service-orientated-architecture" on the web.    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.