October 1997 edition
Contact: Alan
Earls, Editor
Software Publications, Inc.
108 Water St., Watertown MA 02172
617/926-1900 http://www.bosoft.com
"Live Learning Environment" is Focus
of Developer's Event
The New England Software Developer's
Third Party Trade Show Draws a Crowd to Waltham
By Charles E. Vermette
The recent New England Software Developer's Third Party Trade Show, according to NESOFTDEV Director and Founder John Barrie,"was an attempt to involve our corporate sponsors in our 'Live Learning Environment.' Barrie defines the "Live Learning Environment" as one in which "we expose our membership to different projects, applications and ideas, and get a variety of views and discussion."
"We don't believe the training process is limited to technical exposition; we add another dimension to learning in that we allow multiple ways of approaching a particular project. The learning that you get from advanced programmers brainstorming-and vigorously defending their approaches-is a learning experience of the highest order-and one a developer won't find anywhere else."
The fast paced conference was aimed at three crucial areas of application development: user interface architecture, development tools, and the effect of electronic software distribution (ESD) on the software industry. Featured speakers were Dr. Harold Miller-Jacobs, a professor at Tufts University and noted authority on User Interface Architecture, and Jeffrey Tarter, renowned software analyst and Editor/Publisher of the Watertown based Soft*Letter. Corporate sponsors including Linguistic Technology, NuMega, O'Reilly and Associates, Powersoft, Visual Components, Vigor Technologies, Wise Technology, and Soft Pro were on hand to present their latest development tools and publications.
From the onset, audience participation and animated discussion was the order of the day. Opening speaker Harold Miller-Jacobs, speaking on "Developing the High Level User Interface", set the tone by deriding the way most software is developed. "Most developers figure 'Bill {Gates} has been successful doing it his way, I'll copy him.' They then create a window with the standard file, edit and options menus, with the functionality of the program in the options menu ." Miller-Jacobs then bluntly stated that "while a great deal of software is written that way, it's not the way most users would choose to work." Miller-Jacobs offers an as alternative the paradigm of a "Task Panel with a Central Object." With this model, the major tasks to be performed by an application (for instance, changing or deleting a customer record) are represented graphically (via push buttons or tabs) with the "central object" (the customer information) on screen at all times. Miller-Jacobs emphasizes that the "Task Analysis" stage-in which the developer determines what functionality needs to built into the task panel-is crucial.
Products Featured in the vendor presentations included Powersoft's AppModeler, a data modeling environment that allows developers to define or reengineer database characteristics, NuMega Technology's VB Developer Suite of testing and debugging tools, Linguistic Technology's English Wizard, a software component that allows users to access relational databases with plain English queries, and Visual Component's DB Complete, an ActiveX component set for building Database Applications in Visual Basic. The emphasis on Visual Basic Tools reflects NE SOFTDEV's origin as the Boston Computer Society's Visual Basic Group. Barrie, who was Director of the Visual Basic Group and spent six years with the BCS, is looking "to expand the focus of NESOFTDEV to include other development environments and web-related issues."
Tarter, for his part, began his discussion on "Emerging issues in Electronic Distribution (ESD)" by noting that he had been involved in the software industry "for almost fifteen years, and I have not seen anything with as profound an implication to the industry as electronic distribution." According to Tarter, it's not just another way to distribute product. The ESD model is literally changing the way product is being designed, with developers becoming concerned about how small and tight and fast they can make their code for download. The trend is also leading to more componentization of products; there's suddenly a focus on hybrid software models, in which some program functions are remote and others are local.
ESD is also having an effect on business and marketing models. "People are selling something other than physical product; prices are going crazy, customer relations are changing. Almost anything you look at , because of ESD, is likely to change." Tarter is cautious to note that "we're not there yet. At present, larger publishers are generating about 1% of their sales via the web." While other publishers are doing much better, "it's the overall movement (to electronic commerce) that is intriguing."
Tarter sights five issues as being crucial to the future of electronic distribution: market size and momentum, intellectual property protection, the effectiveness of the trialware model, the validity of the Usage Based Pricing model, and the validity of component sales via ESD.
Clearly pleased with the event, Director Barrie notes that "we got our corporate sponsors involved, and we got a national speaker to address us. For a first event, it was both a success and a great learning experience." NESOFTDEV meets every second Tuesday on the Month. The first hour-from 6:00 PM to 7 PM, the focus is on Visual Basic training; from 7 to 8 the focus is on projects brought in by corporate sponsors, small businesses, and other members; the final hour is reserved for guest speakers. For membership information, contact John Barrie at 1-508-829-2181, or via e-mail: JohnBarrie@compuserve.com