Genres are interesting things. They represent a strange combination of evolution, stereotype, ego and cultural attractors.

There are genres in film, books, music, games…

Some of these are ones I like, some are ones I hate and some I simply cannot understand.

But these all represent progress, or at least the development of the initial concept.

So where are the genres in IT?

There are some embryonic signs but the bulk of IT systems/applications regardless of purpose look the same, behave the same and to be frank irritate their users much the same.

If we do not have genres in IT then what does that mean? We don’t have genres of tools so are we nothing more than an expensive hammer?