What's it all about, Alfie?

I'm in the midst of a new project here at The Shop, and I can understand that it's really new technology, and as such, very little is really known about it. Sure, if you listen to the conference talks, Storm is old news, but put it into production and all of a sudden a lot of people's hands lower in the crowd because it's just so bloody new. I'm trying to make it work.

But at the same time, I'm seeing emails about new distributed systems frameworks -- sounds a lot like what Storm is about, and management is asking for opinions. My initial opinion is pretty simple: Pick one and get good at it.

I'm here, but I'm worried that this place is the exact opposite of "Enterprise Tools" - they are the "Always Shiny". We have a tool for distributed, fault-tolerant, computing - so why are we looking at another? Should we assume that the selection we have is premature, and that based on what we have found, we need something better?

I'm not against competition, but then, you have to allow for the fact that you're going to have a hodgepodge of all kinds of systems in the end, as no one goes back and converts a working production system from one working tech to another, different, working tech. There's never time.

So why the search? Why not just get good at one of the leaders in the space, and then gain the critical experience to be able to really make it work?

I fear the answer is that too many people think the tool is the real power.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I've seen it done over and over again - what might be considered antique tech building some of the most amazing things because the people that used it knew it so well they were able to overcome the problems, and make amazing where a newcomer to the tech would see it as impossible.

I hope I'm wrong. I fear I'm not.