One of the hottest buzzwords in the computer industry these days is "object orientation" -- a method of boosting programmer productivity by breaking software code into elements, called objects, that can be kept in an electronic "library" and reused like building blocks to put together new applications.
While object-oriented programming techniques have been around for years, recently new tools have come to market that are said to deliver breakthrough productivity improvements for developers of software for person al computers and Unix work stations.
These new tools are especially helpful in developing software with graphical user interfaces.
DONALD R. HOLLIS
Executive vice president First Chicago Corp. Chicago
Almost every one of our development teams is looking at object orientation, whether they are developing a new system or an extension to an existing system.
The initial impact is that our people go through a steep learning curve.
The payoff is that once you get through the learning curve, the development of systems is greatly accelerated.
WAYNE SADIN
Chief technology officer Michigan National Bank Lansing, Mich.
The biggest improvement we feel we can get with object-oriented development is to improve our cycle time for getting new products to market. By having software objects you can reuse you can customize products very quickly.
Also, with these tools we can make our systems more accessible to our employees, and they therefore can serve the customer better.
JOHN HALEY
Vice president Systematics Information Services Little Rock, Ark.
We believe that object-oriented tools achieve the greatest productivity in the hands of a few highly skilled people.
Most of our work with object-oriented tools goes into the infrastructure and foundation of our applications. Our objective is to allow people to gain the benefits of an object-oriented environment, without having to put up with a lot of the complexity.
WALTER TALLENT
Chief technology officer Hogan Systems Inc. Dallas
The degree to which you can reuse existing objects gives you a huge productivity boost in developing new applications. Hogan's approach has been to have a super-high degree of reuse of objects.
But the new PC tools are in their infancy, and are not really robust enough to handle a mainstream core accounting system for demand deposits or time deposits.
