A friend of mine who made the move from the world of electronic design automation (EDA) to the world wide web (WWW) once told me that he believed that compared to the problems being solved in EDA, WWW programming is a walk in the park. 

I had an opportunity to reflect on this statement when I visited Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco the other day.  I spent a fair amount of my career working in the algorithm heavy world of EDA developing all manner of simulators (logic and fault), test pattern generators and netlist modifiers.  The algorithms we used and modified included things like managing various queues, genetic algorithms, path analysis, determing covering sets and the like.  The nature of the solutions meant that we also had opportunity or more specifically a need to utilize better software development techniques, processes and tools.

As I wandered the exhibit hall, I was alternately mystified by the prevalence of buzz words and jargon (crowd sourcing, cloud computation, web analytics,  collaborative software, etc.) and amazed at how old technologies were touted as new (design patterns!  object-oriented programming! APIs!).  Of course, I understand that any group of people who band together tends to develop their own language so as to more effectively communicate ideas,  identify themselves to one another and sometimes even to exclude outsiders.  So I accept the language stuff but what was truly interesting to me was that this seemingly insular society appears to have slapped together the web without consideration of the developments in computer science that preceded them!

I guess I should be happy they are figuring that out now and are attempting to catch up but then I think “what about all that stuff that’s out there already?’  Does this mean there are all these existing web sites and infrastructure that are about collapse as a result of the force of their own weight?  Is there a  disaster about to befall these sites when they need to upgrade, enhance or even fix significant bugs? Are there major web sites built out of popsicle sticks and bubble gum?

So why is there a big push to hire people who have experience developing these (bad) web sites?  Shouldn’t these Web 2.0 companies be looking for developers that know software rather than developers that know how to slap together a heap of code into a functional but otherwise jumbled mess?