Objectives

This section raises the problem of managing the complexity of large applications and looks at the standardization effort of the OMG aimed at application interoperability, distribution and language, platform and vendor independence. In addition, it discusses the efforts of the ODMG to arrive at a standard for persistent objects. It further discusses the duality between objects and events. Objects and events play a complementary role in the design and realization of applications.

Points to emphasize


slide: Points to emphasize

Hints

The standardization efforts initiated by the OMG and ODMG may considered to be crucial to the success of object orientation in the long term. It is important to stress that the difficulty of realizing such ambitious goals are only partly of a technological nature, as they depend to a large extent upon issues of policy and agreement.

Questions

  1. Discuss the problems involved in developing large applications. What solutions can you think of?
  2. Discuss the standardization efforts initiated by the OMG. What are they aimed at? What solutions are proposed? What problems are involved in realizing these aims?
  3. Discuss the design principles underlying the ODMG standardization efforts. How is the ODMG standard related to the OMG standard?
  4. Discuss the role of events in analysis, design and implementation. How would you characterize the relation between objects and events?

slide: Questions

Comments

It is interesting to note that both the OMG and ODMG proposals employ a `cleaned up' version of C++ as a description language for object interfaces. This may cause C++ to become a de facto standard for object-oriented system development.