CenterLine Software Inc of Cambridge, Massachusetts has released the results of the European survey carried out on its behalf into the growth of object-oriented programming and the spread of the C++ programming language among European developers. 1,300 programmers and software developers were targeted and 170 replies were analysed. None of the results was particulary astounding although a few were of interest to CenterLine. It was surprised to discover the actual take-up of object-oriented prgramming was 60% among respondents, with a third looking into object-oriented development and 5% not planning to. 50% of respondents are increasing their use of C++. Visual Basic was in use by 15% and Smalltalk, Lisp, Basic and Prolog were used by fewer than 9% each of respondents. Half of the development sites had a mix of Unix and personal computer installations, which surprised CenterLine, whose tools at present are all Unix-focussed. It will now be looking into the possibilility of offering personal computer versions of its product lines. As a developer of tools for the object technology market, CenterLine took particular note of which type of development tools the firms are using: 43% are using visual programming tools and 20% are evaluating them, while analysis and design tools are in evaluation by 38% of the organisations, but no-one appears to be using them and only 4% were using an object request broker. Only 13% are using object-oriented databases and 28% are evaluating them, with 40% having no plans to even evaluate such databases. The results uncovered concern among users that despite their interest in object re-use there was insufficient software available to support this. In response CenterLine is planning to offer a new product in the autumn to address this market.
