Not only in the world of programming there is a public tendency to run after each new hype and forget about the solid and proven basements upon which these hypes are built, declaring them dead, dying or obsolete with a hearty lightness.

But the reality in application development is a bit different. Not only visible in facts like the thriving life of COBOL in financial applications, but also in facts, that many projects still require for example JDK 1.3 or 1.4.

Why? Because its works!

Though there are many notions of coding as an art, there is still one supreme requirement of every customer: An application must work and it must be secure and maintainable. No banker could care less, if a financial application uses the most modern, hyped or artful principles, languages or frameworks, unless the cost meets his needs and the damn thing does what it is meant to do. In the world of real applications there is no room for fancy musings or self-expression in code.

But the hypes have of course also good sides.

A) They pay the bills of a host of computer magazine editors filling their pages with them and do the same for their respective advocates who can write books about them or hold lectures.

B) Even more important: Without these hypes many good ideas which eventually find their way into the arsenal of the pragmatic progammer would go away unnoticed.

So in a way the framework or language of the month helps the evolution of software development at large, though mostly with a notable time-offset. The only thing which I find really unnerving is the relentless way in which their high-priests publicly brush away all credos but their on and lead many a beginning programmer onto a track which in result leads nowhere but to doubled effort and time spent.

I would really like a more relaxed approach. But who knows? Maybe it wouldn't work then.