If you don’t know me yet, I am going to state it one more time to set the tone of this blog: I am Italian, born and raised in Rome, and therefore I am loud, opinionated AND judgmental. On top of that I am a woman and a Mainframer (cannot get any worse really…)
Last time I was in Italy with my kids, while scrolling through all of the many public and private TV channels trying to find something to watch, my 8 years old daughter asked me: “Mamma, why are all the women on TV going around in their underwear?”. As I stated before, being born and raised in the country, it is something I grew up with. An acquired taste, if you wish, which I don’t notice anymore but to the foreign (and innocent) eye, all these sexy girls running around half-naked look very weird and out of place… So now, for the first time, I saw it through my daughters’ eyes and started wondering: why does everything have to be bedazzling and sexy these days?? And let’s take it a long step further: Why does even Software have to be sexy these days????
As a woman is hard enough to set-up and maintain a sexy-looking-10-years-younger image at all times. As a young (by Mainframe standards) Mainframer I have enjoyed a more relaxed attitude for many years and just in the past 3 years the madness of sexy-at-all-costs started to make its way to the Mainframe world.
Shouldn’t (at least) Software be judged on other qualities? And especially Software on a Mainframe??
I can understand that all the mobile Apps and phones and tablets should be sexy… no wait, I don’t even understand that… I think Software, no matter where it runs, should have a combination of the following attributes: effective, intuitive, easy to use, reliable, performing, stable.. But sexy??? Maybe cool, but definitely NOT sexy . If you ask me, calling software sexy only makes it sound cheap…
Also the other (serious) questions are:
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What does it mean from an engineering perspective?
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What kind of architecture do we have to put together to make the final result look sexy?
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Are we going to sacrifice effectiveness for looks?
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Is the product going to be so complex and intricate that installing it and maintaining it will turn into a nightmare?
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Are we going to have to move from Mainframe traditionally efficient but ‘uncool’ (forgive me Captain Cobol ;o)) programming languages to more obscure-but-sexy and resource gobbling ones (4 letters: starts with J and ends with A)?
I think we all know the answers…
So, I ask you, what do you think the next step could be? A piece of Software that can sense our mood from scanning our fingerprints and analyzing our biorhythm? And then, based on that, present us only with the information that would not upset us further while at the same time ordering our favorite morning coffee?
Now, THAT would be cool!!!