This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Obie Fernandez. Original Post: Enterprise Is Not an Insult Feed Title: Obie On Rails (Has It Been 9 Years Already?) Feed URL: http://jroller.com/obie/feed/entries/rss Feed Description: Obie Fernandez talks about life as a technologist, mostly as ramblings about software development and consulting. Nowadays it's pretty much all about Ruby and Ruby on Rails. Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Obie Fernandez Latest Posts From Obie On Rails (Has It Been 9 Years Already?)

Well, actually it depends on context, kind of like the word ass.

Plenty of us say "enterprise" when referring to internal-facing systems written by corporate IT departments and it doesn't carry a stigma for being too large or too small, too simple or too complex. Enterprise projects might be large, take years, straddle business units and have global effects or they might be small, departmental efforts with only a handful of end users. So many factors influence the success of enterprise software in a given organization, only few of which have anything to do with technology.

The diversity of enterprise software projects reflects the wide variety of business practices and technical skill levels present in all corporations that leverage information technology. So, does the word enterprise carry a negative connotation in this context? Is it a dirty word or an insult? I argue strongly that it does not.

On the other hand, a related, but profoundly different term that includes the word enterprise is "enterprise-class software", commonly used to describe vendor-supplied software packages that span horizontal and vertical concerns. Examples that jump to mind are SAP and Siebel CRM, and this is precisely the kind of software that David recently predicted will become an insult to users in 2006.

Jason and David from 37Signals are quickly emerging as the world's thought leaders for simpler, more effective software, fueled by the success of their own web-based product line, and of course Ruby on Rails. While I think they are right on the money in pushing less is more design ethic and getting realpragmatism, I disagree with David painting enterprise software in such broad, cynical strokes. At ThoughtWorks we mostly do enterprise software and we've been helping our clients get real for years.

As I described recently, we are finding CIOs and other IT decision-makers who are interested in lightweight development and even Ruby on Rails. I believe that further inroads into the enterprise will strengthen Ruby and Rails tremendously. As they hit mainstream acceptance, the Ruby community will draw in additional contributors and capture mindshare, flushing out countless weaknesses and design flaws. It will also give great impetus to promising projects to expand Ruby (the language) such as JRuby.

As for Rails, I trust David, in the role of benevolent dictator, to keep Rails (even used in the enterprise!) from turning into an overly complex, trying to please everyone mishmash.