it's official, the change has begun.

the move from application to integration development was announced yesterday in a team meeting and in the weekly update. it's all over the press!

i knew this move was coming, the signs have been there for a long time (biztalk/informatica/etc) and although i think there is real need for this type of development in the place i work, i believe that there is still a real need for application development, and that need has been dressed down far too much.

that opinion is not totally founded on the fact that i am an application developer and not a systems integrator, there is a need for apps to be built to deliver value to the business, to get those quick wins in these hard 'climate crunching' times, and we are the only ones that can do that, not system integrators.

don't get me wrong, there is also a need to sort out all the crazy data mess that we have gotten our selves in to here too, i just pray that the powers that be do not overlook the need for us 'real' devs ;)

i'm not a integration monkey, i'm a coding monkey. with an opinion.

app development does indeed rock. so its a real shame that i dont get to do any of it isn't it?

i do nothing but constantly read books/blogs/codeplex code/msdn/etc. about application development, and i'm dying for the next chance i get to develop a real application. and by real applicaiton i mean something with a decent ui. something that i can really get stuck into again, something which i can attack with some domain driven design using test driven development and have a result at the end of it that i can take a screen grab of and send it back to my mum with a note saying that 'i made this!'

this is the first job i've had where i have not been able to do this, and i've been in this job for the last 18 months.

dont get me wrong i really do like my job, i've been able to do some amazing things since getting here like the introduction of versioning, test driven development, dedicated build environments, automated build scripts and continuous integration. and i've really enjoyed it.

but i need some development to do now thankyouverymuch. something to keep my mind active.

there is a project coming up that i'm involved in that has a 3 stage delivery plan. stage one is to take the prototype access database and replace the vba/manual data import part with an etl tool and sql database, which is the stage that is definitely going ahead. next stage is to develop a few administrative tools for the users to handle exceptions, and the final stage is the all singing, all dancing management interface to the underlying data, providng all sorts of awesome widgets and gizmos for them to play with their calculations and do all kinds of funny reporting and cool stuff.

i'm going to make a bet...stage one will go in and we'll get shot of the tables in the access database, and they will be replaced with linked sql tables, but we'll still have the vba code in there, then everone will forget about the next two stages and they will just live with what they have, never knowing the incredible, magical, totally most zawezome3000 bit of software in the whole entire world, if only they just let me do it.

so what happens to me during all this? i get to play around with an etl tool and a sql database, and put in a few linked tables in access. christ, what the hell happened to me? i want to slit my wrists! the only bit of the development that appeals to me are the second and third bits where there is a small chance that there might some real development to do, and i bet you they never happen, actually, even worse than that, they do go ahead, but they'll make me do the ui in an excel workbook that will sit on a file share somewhere on our network.

argh!

watch this space.