Xref: utzoo comp.software-eng:4173 comp.sw.components:500 comp.misc:10142 comp.groupware:288
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!sumax!thebes!polari!jjj
From: jjj@polari.UUCP (Jeff J)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,comp.sw.components,comp.misc,comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Prototyping and the Development Process
Message-ID: <2496@polari.UUCP>
Date: 14 Sep 90 15:05:03 GMT
References: <3839@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> <33820@cup.portal.com>
Organization: Seattle Online Public Unix (206) 328-4944
Lines: 23

In article <33820@cup.portal.com> Will@cup.portal.com (Will E Estes) writes:
><We are interested in any rapid prototyping
><environments currently in use. Environments that encourage the evolution of
><prototypes into the final product are also of interest to us. We would like
>
>I am very much interested in hearing about this as well.  It seems to me
>that the problem with many rapid prototyping environments today is that
>you have to throw away the prototype and re-code from scratch in C or
>something similar.  Has any academic work been done on object-oriented 
>environments that let different languages be attached to objects and
>share data between them? (i.e., the idea is that you could evolve the language
>being attached to the object from something that is easy to program to
>something that is suitable for production use) 
>
The company I work for develops administrative and financial software for
public schools in the state of Washington and we have recently made the
decision to switch to a 4GL (Progress).  One of the advantages this will
give us is the ability to do cost efficient prototypes that we can try
out on sample groups of your users.  With 3GLs this was impractical, at
least in our setting.  The 4GL that we choose includes some prototyping
tools that should allow our user support/consulting staff to develop
some of these prototypes even though they come from a non programming
background.  Of course only time will tell how well this will work :=)