Architecture astronauts take over

It was seven years ago today when everybody was getting excited about Microsoft\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s bombastic announcement of Hailstorm, promising that \\\\\\\"Hailstorm makes the technology in your life work together on your behalf and under your control.\\\\\\\"

What was it, really? The idea that the future operating system was on the net, on Microsoft\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s cloud, and you would log onto everything with Windows Passport and all your stuff would be up there. It turns out: nobody needed this place for all their stuff. And nobody trusted Microsoft with all their stuff. And Hailstorm went away.

I tried to coin a term for the kind of people who invented Hailstorm: architecture astronauts. \\\\\\\"That\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s one sure tip-off to the fact that you\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'re being assaulted by an Architecture Astronaut: the incredible amount of bombast; the heroic, utopian grandiloquence; the boastfulness; the complete lack of reality. And people buy it! The business press goes wild!\\\\\\\"

The hallmark of an architecture astronaut is that they don\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t solve an actual problem... they solve something that appears to be the template of a lot of problems. Or at least, they try. Since 1988 many prominent architecture astronauts have been convinced that the biggest problem to solve is synchronization.

Follow the story, here. I started picking on one company that appeared to be particularly astronautish: Groove, which was trying to rebuild Lotus Notes (a giant synchronization machine) in a peer-to-peer fashion.

Groove had some early success selling secure networks to the military-industrial complex, but didn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t make much of a ripple outside that niche. Their real success was in getting bought by Microsoft, which brought Groove\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s designer and chief architecture-astronaut Ray Ozzie to the role of \\\\\\\"Chief Software Architect\\\\\\\" at Microsoft, supposedly the technical guy that would keep inventing the future after BillG left so that Steve Ballmer would have some new territory on which to build his next illegal monopoly.

And now Ray Ozzie\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s big achievement arrives and what is it? (drumroll...) Microsoft Live Mesh. The future of everything. Microsoft is \\\\\\\"moving into the cloud.\\\\\\\"

What\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s Microsoft Live Mesh?

Hmm, let\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s see.

\\\\\\\"Imagine all your devices—PCs, and soon Macs and mobile phones—working together to give you anywhere access to the information you care about.\\\\\\\"

Wait a minute. Something smells fishy here. Isn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t that exactly what Hailstorm was supposed to be? I smell an architecture astronaut.

And what is this Windows Live Mesh?

It\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s a way to synchronize files.

Jeez, we\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'ve had that forever. When did the first sync web sites start coming out? 1999? There were a million versions. xdrive, mydrive, idrive, youdrive, wealldrive for ice cream. Nobody cared then and nobody cares now, because synchronizing files is just not a killer application. I\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'m sorry. It seems like it should be. But it\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s not.

But Windows Live Mesh is not just a way to synchronize files. That\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s just the sample app. It\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s a whole goddamned architecture, with an API and developer tools and in insane diagram showing all the nifty layers of acronyms, and it seems like the chief astronauts at Microsoft literally expect this to be their gigantic platform in the sky which will take over when Windows becomes irrelevant on the desktop. And synchronizing files is supposed to be, like, the equivalent of Microsoft Write on Windows 1.0.

It\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s Groove, rewritten from scratch, one more time. Ray Ozzie just can\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t stop rewriting this damn app, again and again and again, and taking 5-7 years each time.

And the fact that customers never asked for this feature and none of the earlier versions really took off as huge platforms doesn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t stop him.

How on earth does Microsoft continue to pour massive resources into building the same frigging synchronization platforms again and again? Damn, they just finished building something called Windows Live FolderShare and I haven\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t exactly noticed a stampede to that. I\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'ll bet you\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'ve never even heard of it. The 3,398th web site that lets you upload and download files to a place on the Internet. I\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'m so excited I might just die.

I shouldn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t really care. What Microsoft\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s shareholders want to waste their money building, instead of earning nice dividends from two or three fabulous monopolies, is no business of mine. I\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'m not a shareholder. It sort of bothers me, intellectually, that there are these people running around acting like they\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'re building the next great thing who keep serving us the same exact TV dinner that I didn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t want on Sunday night, and I didn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t want it when you tried to serve it again Monday night, and you crunched it up and mixed in some cheese and I didn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t eat that Tuesday night, and here it is Wednesday and you\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'ve rebuilt the whole goddamn TV dinner industry from the ground up and you\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'re giving me 1955 salisbury steak that I just DON\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'T WANT. What is it going to take for you to get the message that customers don\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t want the things that architecture astronauts just love to build. The people? They love twitter. And flickr and delicious and picasa and tripit and ebay and a million other fun things, which they do want, and this so called synchronization problem is just not an actual problem, it\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s a fun programming exercise that you\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'re doing because it\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s just hard enough to be interesting but not so hard that you can\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t figure it out.

Why I really care is that Microsoft is vacuuming up way too many programmers. Between Microsoft, with their shady recruiters making unethical exploding offers to unsuspecting college students, and Google (you\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'re on my radar) paying untenable salaries to kids with more ultimate frisbee experience than Python, whose main job will be to play foosball in the googleplex and walk around trying to get someone...anyone...to come see the demo code they\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'ve just written with their \\\\\\\"20% time,\\\\\\\" doing some kind of, let me guess, cloud-based synchronization... between Microsoft and Google the starting salary for a smart CS grad is inching dangerously close to six figures and these smart kids, the cream of our universities, are working on hopeless and useless architecture astronomy because these companies are like cancers, driven to grow at all cost, even though they can\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t think of a single useful thing to build for us, but they need another 3000-4000 comp sci grads next week. And dammit foosball doesn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t play itself.

架构太空人的天下

             太空架构师的天下（Architecture astronauts take over）
                          KornerHill{at}gmail.com
                                2008-5-4


Jeol新写的文章，作为微软的老兵，他对微软有自己的看法。文中一些措辞相当激烈，这里
只是照直翻译，作为一家之言供人参考，不代表译者的观点。译者的更多的译文和文章在他
的blog上可以找到，http://blog.csdn.net/KornerHill，转载请保留链接。

在几年前，微软对Hailstorm的夸大宣传还曾让人们一度兴奋不已，它宣称“Hailstorm能让
你生活中的技术为你相互协作，并且在你的掌控之中”。

它实际上是个什么呢？是这样的一个意思：未来的操作系统将基于微软的网络，你靠着视窗
通告证（Windows Passport）可以登陆一切的东西，然后你全部的东西就在上面。结果是：
没有人需要这样一个东西来放他们全部的东西。也没有人信得过微软可以托付自己的东西。
结果Hailstorm就玩完了。

我试着为发明Hailstorm的这类人造了一个新词：太空架构师（architecture astronauts，
见http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000018.html）。“被太空架构师攻
击的一个重要特征就是：没完没了的夸大说法，英雄式的以及乌托邦式的豪言壮语，极其自
负，不切实际。而且有人买帐！商业新闻都疯掉了！”

太空架构师的重要特性是他们不解决任何实际问题，他们只解决那些看起来是所有问题的共
有的东西。至少他们会试着去解决。自从1988年以来很多杰出的太空架构师都认为要解决的
最大的问题是同步。

继续这里的故事。我要开始捉弄另外一家有点太空的公司了，那就是Groove（请见
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000011.html）。它试图用点对点的方
式重写Lotus Notes（一个巨大的同步机器）。

Groove早期卖达到军工企业级的安全网络有些成绩，但在那之外没什么建树。他们真正的业
绩是被微软收购，Groove的设计师和首席太空架构师Ray Ozzie也成了微软的首席软件架构
师。据推测他将在盖茨离开之后负责开拓新技术，这样鲍尔默才能找一些新领域去搞他的下
一个垄断。

现在Ray Ozzie的大作到来了，是什么呢？（咚咚咚～～）Microsoft Live Mesh。是一切的
未来。微软正在“向云计算迈进！”

Microsoft Live Mesh又是什么呢？

嗯，让我们看看。

“想像一下你所有的设备——PC电脑、不久之后还有苹果机、移动电话——一直工作，让你
不论在哪里都能得到你想要的信息。”

等一下。怎么有股腐烂的味道？那不是Hailstorm当初想做的么？我闻到了太空架构师的味
道。

那这个Windows Live Mesh又是什么呢？

就是同步文件的方式。

切，我们早就有了嘛。第一个同步网站是什么时候出来的？1999年？有几百万个了：
xdrive、mydrive、idrive、youdrive、wealldrive。那时就没人关注更别说现在了，因为
文件同步不是一个关键应用（killer application）。很抱歉，它看起来应该是的，但它不
是。

但Windows Live Mesh不仅是同步文件的方式。这只是一个演示。它是TMD一整套架构，有
API和开发工具，还有无聊的图表用缩写标出全部的层次，看起来微软的首席太空人从字面
上就想让这玩意儿变成他们在天上的最大的平台来一统天下，在Windows和桌面应用无关之
后。同步文件应该就是相当于Windows 1.0上的Microsoft Write了。

Groove又一次从头开始重写代码了。Ray Ozzie就是在不停地重写这个GRD程序，一次，一次
，又一次，每次都要花个5到7年。

即使用户从来不要求这个功能，早期的版本也从来没有成为一个巨大的平台，他也不停下。

微软那底还要花多少资源去一次又一次地搞这种要命的文件同步平台？Kao，他们才搞完一
个叫Windows Live FolderShare的东西，我还没注意到有人会去用那个。我打赌你都没听过
这个。那是第3398个网站，让你在互联网上传下载文件。我高兴得要死了。

我没必要关心的。微软的股东不去两三家极好的垄断行业赚红利而是把钱浪费在其它地方和
我没啥关系。我又不是股东。让我烦心的是，总有一些人忙来忙去，好像他们在搞什么伟大
的东西，就像那些在周日晚上送给我们送我最不想要的TV晚餐的人一样，在周一晚上我还是
不想要但你又送来，到周二晚上你把它捣烂拌上奶酪但我还是不要，到周三晚上你又TMD把
这个TV餐完全重做了一遍还加上了1955索尔兹伯里牛排，但我就是不想要！到底要花多少才
能让你认识到客户不想要那些太空架构师喜欢做的东西？用户呢？他们喜欢twitter、
flickr、dilicious、picasa、tripit、ebay还有其它成百上千的有趣东西，那才是他们真
正想要的。所谓的同步问题根本就不是一个实际的问题，只是一个有趣的编程练习，有趣的
地方在于它很难变得有趣，但你又很容易认识不到这一点。

我真正关心的是微软已经吸引了太多程序员。在微软，招聘人员开出惊人的待遇给天真的大
学生，谷歌（你已经在我的雷达上了）给出高到不行的薪水招一些会玩飞盘而不是Python的
人，给他们的主要工作就是在googleplex玩桌上足球和四下游走去找某人——任何人——去
看他们花了“20%时间”写的用来做——我猜下——云计算的代码。在微软和谷歌，一个聪
明的计算机专业毕业生的起薪已经逼近6位数，这些天才儿童、大学的精华整天从事于没用
的太空架构。因为这些公司就像癌症一样，不惜一切代价地扩张。即使他们想不到一点对我
们有用的东西，他们也还是会在下周再招另外3000-4000个大学生。不然可没人去玩TMD桌上
足球了。