Since Jim Rumbaugh joined Grady Booch at Rational Software this year, the two have been working on a Unified Method for modeling object-oriented systems. Close to 300 people attended Rumbaugh's Dec. 6 talk, which COOUG co-sponsored with the Connecticut Valley Data Administration Management Association, and joined in a chorus of "The Unified Method Song."
See David Carr's account of The Unified Method (in Words and Song).
By Tom Walsh
Object wars have been raging for years. Go to virtually any
gathering of OO developers and you will very likely watch the
conversation migrate to questions of language. Which is best,
Smalltalk, C++, Objective C, Eiffel, Ada? And when the
Smalltalkers get together, the question invariably becomes: what
flavor is best, ParcPlace or Digitalk? With the merger of these
two long-time competitors, the shouting of rivals has been muted.
In fact, as Jim Barton of the newly formed ParcPlace-Digitalk points out, the products have always had different and complementary strengths. By ending the internecine warfare, and providing a complete OO development environment, the new company hopes to create a broader market for object technology generally.
Our November 14 meeting was devoted to a discussion of a unified Smalltalk language and the benefits to be expected from the joining of these two market leaders. Key among the benefits are:
As explained by Mr. Barton, the team structure for next generation system development will be very different from the traditional IS shops today. The new structure is based on a producer/consumer model that assembles systems from pre-existing piece parts. In this model 'producers' develop, maintain, and extend business objects. Application developers working directly with the business community 'consume' these business objects in the rapid assembly of systems. Properly supported and orchestrated, this development model can deliver the benefits of speedy delivery along with high quality.
Mr. Barton concluded the session by discussing future development challenges, from creating Web-based applications to performing application debugging in distributed environments. Throughout, he stresses the importance of delivering business benefit versus simply overcoming technical challenges.
Ron Calabrese
At the November 14th Users Group meeting, a brief period was
spent reviewing the COOUG Board of Director positions and
election procedures. An informal vote was taken to
"re-elect" the current Board members for the upcoming
1996 year. The informal nature of this "first" election
was due to gelling of the COOUG organization and its sponsors
over the course of 1995. Since the organization first published
its formal charter and operational procedures (in the fall of
1994), the group needed a period of time to mature and establish
its presence within the area. Future elections will be done via a
ballot vote in the Fall COOUG newsletter. All nominees need to be
submitted during the course of the first and second quarters of
1996.
For your information, here is a brief review of the current Board members and their position descriptions:
Ed Mirek
Runs the organization in a manner analogous to running a
business; presides at Board of Directors meetings; assists all
Officers and Directors in the performance of their
responsibilities; approves any disbursements.
Denise Lynch
Is responsible for Users Group meetings; provides leadership for
all workshops and discussion groups; directs the efforts of the
Users Group Meeting Committee.
Aaron Holden
Is responsible for all material published by COOUG; handles all
COOUG correspondence; provides a reference source for all
relevant COOUG documentation; approves limited disbursements.
Mark Allard
Is responsible for current membership lists; processing new
applicants; all communications to the membership.
Nancy Vincent
Maintains all financial accounts; handles all financial
transactions including the collection and distribution of funds;
produces COOUG balance sheets and income statements.
Tom Fulton Markets COOUG; markets object oriented technology to the greater community on behalf of the organization; responsible for the publication of the newsletter featuring articles and activities of the organization.
Mary-Lou Margiotta
Acting chairperson for the C++ SIG.
Buddy Kresge
Acting chairperson of Smalltalk SIG.
Terry McAuliffe
Acting editor of the Newsletter.
Tony Kerz
Designer/maintainer of the database
Ron Calabrese
Responsible for the COOUG survey; responsible for processing all
requested Charter or By-Law modifications; manages and executes
the annual election process.
Tom Walsh and Janet Gardner
Give advice to the COOUG Board of Directors.
Members must be "active" to participate in elections. (The requirement for such membership in COOUG is an active interest in object oriented technology and attendance at a minimum of two Users Group meetings annually.)
With these definitions and procedures in mind, please submit any nominees for upcoming terms to me during the course of the next several months (until August 1996). Elected positions for 1997 will include President, Executive Vice President, and Membership Vice President, as well as three Director positions. I can be reached as follows: Ron Calabrese, 860-277-4886, 75664.3476@compuserve.com.
Oh, by the way, the informal vote was unanimous...to keep the current COOUG Board of Directors intact through 1996! Thank you for your support.
John Vlissides This month's meeting will feature a presentation by John Vlissides, a researcher at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, NY. See also meeting schedule.
Michael Brodie, Senior Staff Scientist at GTE Laboratories, Waltham MA will present his keynote talk The Emperors Clothes are Object-Oriented (and Distributed) from Object World, Frankfurt, October 1995. His talk will include GTE's experiences and their framework for using object technology.
Terry McAuliffe
Looking for timely information on Object Technology? Me too! We
can't put it all in our paper newsletter. In fact, there is far
more information on our web page than we could ever squeeze onto
those few pages. COOUG is planning to gradually phase out the
hard-copy newsletter and publish entirely on the web. This
eliminates the costs associated with mailing, and frees us from a
bi-monthly publishing schedule.
We plan to place important information onto our web page as soon as it becomes available, and then notify you by E-Mail of its arrival. If there is a special event, you'll know right away -- not on our next publication run. We'll also provide pointers to important information elsewhere on the web.
To make it work we need to know your primary E-Mail address. Send it to COOUG@aol.com. Give us the one that you plan to keep long term. And remember to notify us if you ever change this address. If you don't have an E-Mail address (!) and can't access the Internet (!!!) then I think you now have a pretty good reason to do so.