Through subscriptions at work and home, I read a number of computer magazines, including Dr. Dobb’s Journal (DDJ), C Users Journal, Unix Review, Sun World, and Info-World. These magazines discuss programming, programming trends, and programming utilities/software.
Two of the leading topics of discussions have been Object Oriented Programming (OOP) and Software Engineering, which includes Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE).
Most of my programming at work is short scripts/programs that are used as short term utilities ( because I am the only one willing to tackle AWK, Perl, and Shell Scripts). But I don’t get to do any “serious” programming that would allow me to explore these new areas of computers.
Because of this practical lack of experience, I still do not have a firm understanding of CASE and especially OOPs. We’ve all heard about both in the press and the how they both will be the panacea of all computing ills.
I’ve tried to muddle through articles that supposedly explain what OOPs is, but they all introduce concepts with out any tie to past knowledge. We all learn about some new item by comparing it with an old item. Our basis of the new item is founded on what we know of the old item (note that I’m trying to avoid the term “object”). All of the articles on OOPs make no attempt to show what an OO program is by comparing it with one that is not. They sort of jump into the middle of things as if all of their definitions of object, class, hierarchy, etc, are clear to all. I believe it was Jeff Dunteman of DDJ that said “Object Oriented Programming with be the hottest item in the 90’s, but no one will know what it is.”, or something to that affect.
With CASE or just SE, I have not run across any general utilities that easily take high level psuedo-code and turn it into a code. We do have a number of specialized utilities, like YACC and LEX mentioned above, but most articles seem to describe an entire environment that allows code to be built from putting flow-chart boxes on the screen.
Where I’m leading to is this: I’m looking for examples of either OOPs or CASE on the QL, even if it’s very limited examples drummed up for demo purposes only. I feel the QL should be a usefull tool for exploring both of these concepts. I’m not saying that I want to embrace either of these concepts, I just want enough experience and knowledge with the concepts to form an opinion other than “I dunno.”
Know I know we’ve got some sharp people out there working on QLs (other wise we would not have C68 and other great software). I’m hoping that someone out there knows enough about either one of these concepts to explain it to me and other QL programmers. Or for those more masochistic minded, go figure these out for yourself and report back to us on what you find.