The promise and the cost of object technology

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Abstract
Object-oriented techniques for analysis, design, and construction of software systems have been espoused with fervor in the computing literature. Advocates cite successes in a wide variety of applications, from graphical user interfaces and distributed databases to large-scale financial simulations. The increasing number of books and articles published on topics related to object technology (OT) lends credence to the fact that this discipline has come of age. However, a number of pertinent issues have not been firmly addressed. To what extent will OT really affect the business software and business processes? If OT is mature, why hasn''t it been adopted as widely as many predicted? In what areas does OT offer the most promise, and as OT expands into these areas, what new challenges lie ahead? To answer these questions, ACM convened an Industry Advisory Board, sponsored by IBM''s object Strategy and Implementation Group, to discuss future applications of OT in industrial settings. The panel included leading experts representing the areas of object-oriented languages, tools standardization efforts, current application areas, and predicted areas of future growth. Panelists were asked to look ahead to what we might expect of object systems, five to ten years in the future. This article summarizes the two-day discussion. It begins with a brief summary of the characteristics of OT that make it promising for widespread use in industry. One of these, the use of object orientation to create reusable software components, is treated in detail. in a separate section. This is followed by a discussion of the panelists'' explanation of why OT has not yet been widely adopted in the business environment. The problems associated with training personnel to understand and apply OT, a critical issue for most business enterprises, are presented in more detail. The article concludes with an outline of the panel''s ideas on where OT research efforts might best be allocated in order to maximize the benefits for future industrial users of OT. Appendices provide verbatim excerpts from the discussions.

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