Tim Bray mentions an essay about the Theory of Everything for IT.
In Physics, there is no theory of everything: there's a Quantum Mechanics that describes the very small, and Relativity, which describes the very large. But there is no one theory that describes, say, what happens inside a black hole.
In IT, there are theories on how to store data in a database (hint: use a RDBMS), theories to structure data inside an application (hint: wave a dead object over your head three times), and theories on how to send messages between applications (hint: use angle-brackety notation, or face a lot of pain and lock-in).
In IT, we have these three rings, but no one ring of power to bind everything together in a single package.
Here's Tim's view on the tri-partite nature of modern software development:
I think the triad Sean and Scott call out (objects, tables, and messages) is fundamental, and that any nontrivial modern application just has to deal with this stuff, and to the extent that it tries to avoid doing so, will be flawed.[...]
But for me, this essay brought into focus the fact that anyone who isnââ¬â¢t [...] comfortable with all three, I say, just isnââ¬â¢t fully trained.
