I did my first customer visit yesterday. The customer is building a "composite application" for property insurace application processing. I am having a little trouble getting my mind around the concept. You have to remember that Zorro has been out of the loop for a while. I could not follow the terms.

 

I wasn't quite sure what a composite was. I had gone to the dentist earlier in the week and heard the term composite. The dentist said he was going to put a "composite filling" into one of my teeth.

 

BTW, the dentist office was pretty nice to me. My advice is to wear a cape and carry a sword the next time you visit the dentist. They'll give you some stuff that knocks the socks off of Novacaine and Nitrous-Oxide. Plus, they do not give you the injection in your mouth. They use one of those "dart gun things" you see on the National Geographic Channel when they tag polar bears.

 

Make sure that your parole officer and psychiatrist calls beforehand. Otherwise, the sword might put people off.

 

So, I was not quite sure how to map the concept of a dental filling into property insurance. Plus, the customer was building an application for processing an application? It seemed that we were going to build a meta-application for property insurance using dental equipment (Don't ask how I know about meta-*; more on that later).

 

I decided to look up "composite application" on the Web. There were definitions at http://looselycoupled.com/glossary/composite%20application and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_application.

 

BTW, the Web is pretty cool. I looked up SWAT team and read the description. It seems that SWAT teams use Tasers not "teasers." That explains a lot. 

 

I used the definitions of composite application in the customer meeting, and a big fight errupted. Somethings never change about Zorro. It seems that there are many perspectives on composite applications, and SOA is only part of it. I will post again when I get a little more information.