Misoneism - A hatred or fear of change or innovation
Posted at 7/23/2008 07:46:00 AM
I subscribe to a.word.a.day and a few days ago the word was misoneism. The definition (hatred of change or innovation) made me think of the time when I was an IT manager trying to get our business users to accept a new technology that would make their job easier. Today though, browsers, standardized application interfaces and the general ubiquity of computers have reduced this problem almost to insignificance.
The interesting point is that it seems like some of the IT folks have now become the misoneists (my apologies to Anu Garg if that is not a valid form of the word). Oracle people (users, not employees of Oracle) can’t imagine using SQL Server and the SQL Server folks can’t imagine using Oracle—and DB2 is an anathema for both groups. None of them would dream of looking at a database that was not relational regardless of the business needs and appropriateness of the solution. Of course, there are exceptions to every blanket statement and there certainly are a few visionaries who will look at the possibilities of a new technology. But it seems there are only visionaries and hard core conservatives in the industry. The middle ground seems to be very empty.
Alternative database structures are available today that provide much better information access for analysis and BI applications than any RDBMS yet they have virtually no customers. Compared to the number of licenses of Oracle and/or SQL Server, the presence of all non-relational database installations combined is nearly invisible unless one counts every XML file as a database. Non-relational database companies with more than a few dozen customers consider themselves to be extremely successful.
What happened to the pioneers in information technology? The industry is not so old that they are all retired or dead. Why do the younger members of the industry have their feet so firmly planted in the clay? If innovation in software is to keep pace with Moore’s law, we need many more innovators and fewer traditionalists.
The interesting point is that it seems like some of the IT folks have now become the misoneists (my apologies to Anu Garg if that is not a valid form of the word). Oracle people (users, not employees of Oracle) can’t imagine using SQL Server and the SQL Server folks can’t imagine using Oracle—and DB2 is an anathema for both groups. None of them would dream of looking at a database that was not relational regardless of the business needs and appropriateness of the solution. Of course, there are exceptions to every blanket statement and there certainly are a few visionaries who will look at the possibilities of a new technology. But it seems there are only visionaries and hard core conservatives in the industry. The middle ground seems to be very empty.Alternative database structures are available today that provide much better information access for analysis and BI applications than any RDBMS yet they have virtually no customers. Compared to the number of licenses of Oracle and/or SQL Server, the presence of all non-relational database installations combined is nearly invisible unless one counts every XML file as a database. Non-relational database companies with more than a few dozen customers consider themselves to be extremely successful.
What happened to the pioneers in information technology? The industry is not so old that they are all retired or dead. Why do the younger members of the industry have their feet so firmly planted in the clay? If innovation in software is to keep pace with Moore’s law, we need many more innovators and fewer traditionalists.
