Editorials

Objects Will Solve it All

Objects Will Solve it All
Back in 1992 I had a depressing conversation with a gentleman who was a consultant engaged at my company. I love programming. I love the process of gathering requirements and solving the puzzle to solve a real world need. My friend, Jerry, said that world would be gone in another 5-10 years. I was crushed. I loved programming and wanted to continue doing it for many more years to come.

23 years later I am still programming much the same I as did in 1992. What has changed? What did Jerry predict that didn’t’ come true? Was Jerry completely wrong?

Let me first start with the vision of objects. According to Jerry, in the 1990s we were developing objects that would become building blocks for any system. Instead of purchasing frameworks, controls, libraries of routines and stuff like that, you would purchase libraries of objects. The job of the developer would be to gather the appropriate set of objects, and meld them into a meaningful set of objects, wrapping the appropriate interactions around them.

If you think about it, this was a real possibility using real objects. In object oriented programming, the object contains not only data; it also contains behaviors. The object has methods and events to which your software will bind. If you think about it in terms of objects such as a purchase order, there are only so many ways to design them. the behavior is very universal. Yet, we continue to design them over and over. Why not simply purchase a base purchase order object, extend it should that be necessary, and save yourself a lot of money for the customizations you really need; not programming the whole thing.

With web services it was nearly possible to meet this objective because the communication of SOAP was universally available to all languages and operating systems. Even so, the ideal of utilizing object libraries has not yet become a first class technique that I have been able to find. I have tried so many Google searches with no results for Dot Net. Am I missing something? Has the dream failed, or is it simply taking longer than anticipated? What roadblocks keep us from usable objects.

Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below, or send an Email to btaylor@sswug.org.

Cheers,

Ben

$$SWYNK$$

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