schultz@grebyn.com (Ronald Schultz) (08/30/90)
Object-Oriented Development appears to, after watching postings here, to be a niche software development technique, only suitable for real-time, graphics software, or operating system development. After watching for months, I have seen little to no posting as to how object-oriented development is in any way a complete lifecycle development approach for business systems development. My interest in this is from an MIS management perspective. Information Engineering (IE) (Finkelstein and Martin) is becoming the development methodology of choice for most organizations. Many of the Fortune 100 are spending millions on CASE tools in support of these methods. (In the latest issues of ComputerWorld, both Ford and GE have recently signed multimillion $$ agreements with CASE vendors for tools). Information Engineering experienced systems analysts command 5K to 15K higher salaries than their non-IE peers due to the number of companies trying to hire them. OOD, as it stands today in what I see in the trade press, on USENET, and in seminars, seems in no way as robust or as complete as IE. Tool support is diverse and complete for IE, from high level business systems planning support clear to automated code generation. The basic question is: How can an MIS manager in good concience recommend OOD for key, high visibility business systems again IE? As project manager for the IBM mainframe user's group project on Object-Oriented Development, I am constantly asked this question. While I may be a zealot for OO, I have serious doubts that OO will ever take hold in MIS against IE. Even the benefits of object-oriented programming may be soon passe against the code generation facilities of products like Knowledgeware's IEW and TI's IEF. 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 ? Thanx for listening Ron Schultz schultz@grebyn.com 614-759-3127