With signs of a backlash against the so-called fourth generation languages, which are sometimes what used to be called applications generators, at others a whole lot less, there is growing interest in object-oriented programming, and a new industry body – yet another – is being formed to promote the concepts and try to set some standards. The Object Management Group Inc brings together Hewlett-Packard Co, Data General Corp, Unisys Corp, Sun Microsystems Inc, Prime Computer Inc, Philips NV, Canon Inc, 3Com Corp, American Airlines, Soft-Switch Inc, and Gold Hill Computers Inc, and plans to take as its starting point Hewlett’s NewWave Object Management Facility. The objective will be to develop classes of programming objects for use in specific types of application. AT&T Co’s C++ object-oriented language will loom large in the group’s work, but it does not intend to standardise on a particular language – not least because Hewlett is bes’ friends with Microsoft Corp on its NewWave effort: it stands beside Microsoft in the dock of Apple Computer Inc’s complaint about Windows and Presentation Manager – and Microsoft is said to be almost ready with an object-oriented version of Pascal. The key attraction of object-oriented programming is that it eliminates constant reinventing of the wheel: once an object has been defined – anything from a subroutine through a library to a piece of digitised sound – it can be reused over and over again within whatever limitations are imposed by machine dependence and portability. Object-orientation – see page two.
