Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!hsi!stpstn!cox
From: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: OO vs. Information Engineering
Keywords: MIS, OO, IE
Message-ID: <5526@stpstn.UUCP>
Date: 2 Sep 90 17:08:41 GMT
References: <21730@grebyn.com>
Reply-To: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox)
Organization: Stepstone
Lines: 47

In article <21730@grebyn.com> schultz@grebyn.com (Ronald Schultz) writes:
>
>And so I issue a challenge.  In terms of a complete lifecycle
>methodology, from business systems planning through testing and
>maintenance, what does OO offer that is better than IE?  Give me
>any reasons why a senior MIS manager should bet his job and that
>of his staff (and possibly his company - since many MIS systems
>are mission critical to an enterprise's survival (e.g. American
>Express)).  Is the hype to OO merely a marketing promo for C++
>and OODBMSs, or is there something substantial for us in MIS to
>deal with ?  
>
There absolutely is big news here of tremendous relevance to MIS and to
IBM, but it has been obscured by all the hype to the effect that OO is 
only about glitzy new ways to build programming languages and databases;
i.e. yet another in a long dismal chain of new *processes* for building
code from scratch.

Notice that the very term, 'object-oriented', implies reorienting 
so that not to continue seeking software's salvation in glitzy new *processes* 
(languages, methodologies, lifecycles, blah, blah) but instead by orienting 
instead on the *product*; the software itself.

This is not a trival change, but a paradigm shift comparable to what
Copernicus' did in shifting the center of the universe from the earth
to the sun, and to what Ely Whitney did in shifting the center of 
manufacturing from cut-to-fit hand craftsmanship to a marketplace 
in interchangeable components.

It is this broader change that is the long-term importance of OO, not the
narrow whiz-bang technological focus that dominates OO discussion today.

Two articles are being published this fall that go into this in detail.
See the October issue of Byte magazine for "There is a silver bullet" which
develops the Copernicus and Ely Whitney examples.

Also see the November issue of IEEE Software for a deeper discussion of 
what I mean by the title "Planning the Software Industrial Revolution; 
The Impact of OO Technologies".
-- 

Brad Cox; cox@stepstone.com; CI$ 71230,647; 203 426 1875
The Stepstone Corporation; 75 Glen Road; Sandy Hook CT 06482
-- 

Brad Cox; cox@stepstone.com; CI$ 71230,647; 203 426 1875
The Stepstone Corporation; 75 Glen Road; Sandy Hook CT 06482