Tim Bray has begun a series to identify which technologies win and lose, and why. “: Which new technologies will make it, and which will fail? The TPSM is an attempt to approach this question systematically, by figuring out what the key success factors are for new technologies. The premise is that you use the past to predict the future.”
Winners: SQL/RDBMS, Unix/C, Open Source, PC Client, WWW, Java, XML
Losers: OODBMS, 4GL, AI, VRML, Interactive TV, Ada, SGML
The Nine Factors: Management support, Investor support, Standardization process, Technical elegance, Apparent ROI, 80/20 point, Compelling idea , Happy programmers, Good implementations.
Should be a terrific series.
