I’d like to compare the current state of software development, particularly “private” Web applications for businesses, to the American landscape of the 1800’s. On the one hand you had the Wild West. Cowboys, indians, land and riches for the taking, almost anything goes, he who’s quickest on the draw wins, etc. OK, I’m kind of exaggerating, but you get the idea. On the other hand, you had the Sophistication of the East. City living, refinement, cultural societies, gala affairs. The Easterners and Westerners couldn’t see eye to eye. The Westerners thought the Easterners were city slickers, weak, soft in the head, didn’t have what it takes to be a man. The Easterners thought the Westerners were dirty, unmannered, uncivilized, didn’t have what it takes to foster the march of industrial and cultural progress.

What does this have to do with software? Well, we have a similar picture here: on one side is the Wild West world of open source, cutting-edge, scripting languages wired together with other components of the server stack through the code equivalent of duck tape and string. Ruby, PHP, Python. Linux or *BSD. Apache, or newcomers like lighttpd. On the other side is the Eastern Sophistication of Java, of WebSphere, of IIS, of ASP.NET, of C#, Windows, Solaris, etc. All respectable, civilized, cultured software supported by sophisticated, respectable, civilized, cultured people. March of the enterprise, of industry, of progress.

Now, like many geeks, I tend to be a Wild West kind of guy. But I do know one thing: the Wild West was only made possible because all those cows were sold to Easterners so they could eat their roast beef. The people who struck it rich in California went back East to buy a mansion in New York — or built a mansion in a sophisticated town like Sacramento. The farmers sold their crops to the city slickers to provide the cultured food for their gala affairs.

The fact is, the West needed the East, just like the East needed the West. And we geeks need the enterprise. While it’s cool to poke fun at “enterprisey” solutions that are over-complicated, over-engineered, and over-priced, we need to remember that our solutions have to be well-documented, well-supported, stable, and fully-featured in order for the West (open source scripting languages, servers, and OSes) to be a truly viable option for the East (big proprietary companies who like big proprietary solutions).

I want the PHP software I develop to be good enough to survive, nay, to thrive in the enterprise. But like the Westerners of old, I like my beef rare and right off the ranch.