Making Memories (BA ch 4)

Hmm ... not really sure what to say about this chapter. Overall, I think the author laid out a clear picture of the development process of a software system to power a photography studio chain. The system consisted of components running in branch offices and corporate locations with data being shipped back and forth via DVDs. The system as a whole was a key requirement for the business to function. Without it, photographs could not be editted/uploaded, pictures could not be printed, customers could not take delivery of their orders, etc. But when I finished reading the chapter, I asked myself what did I actually learn? What were the key take-aways that should have sparked that Aha! moment? If someone has an opinion on this, please let me know! I guess there were some interesting points about the competing forces of business drivers and software development, some other good stuff about separating concerns (such as they didn't want any business logic in the UI for example).

One thing I was questioning though ... why go through all the trouble of building a whole subsystem for branch office clients/servers to exchange files? Why not just use thin clients as the end user terminals and have all software components run on the server? No more need for file transfers! Not to mention reduced support costs as you wouldn't have to administer/patch/update client PCs. Maybe you could argue that this would introduce more of a single point of failure, but if that is really a strong concern, add a second server and create a redundant cluster...