Monday, April 26, 2004

Custom Metadata

I was just talking with one of my CTO buddies. He was bragging that implementing his software product at a client site requires no custom code. I paused for a moment and asked, "Does it require custom metadata?" To which he answered, "Yes, and it has a nice front-end to enter it in."

My first thought was that he was just pushing the problem from one location to another. But for some reason, it does feel better pushing the problem from code to metadata, but I'm not entirely sure why. I like the idea of not compiling everything (a benefit of metadata). I also like the idea of having domain constraints on the data being entered (versus 3rd gen languages). I guess that a system that embraces MOF/MDA/metadata concepts requires less in-depth expertise. In essence, the expertise is built into the framework, enabling a 'paint-by-number' approach to recurring pattern based problem solving (resources require less training, thus less expensive).

I'd love to hear what you think the advantages to a metadata driven approach are. Blog it. Link to this. Click through once. I'll repost referers.

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