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1994-01-23
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IBM recently announced VisualAge, a visual programming power
tool for developing robust client/server applications quickly
and easily. This is being tested by early customers and planned
to be generally available early in 1994.
VisualAge enables rapid application development by combining the
power of object-oriented (OO) technology with the simplicity of
visually connecting pre-fabricated software components. The
combination of the VisualAge integrated Smalltalk environment
with necessary team-oriented facilities provides for the
development of scalable, line-of-business applications.
VisualAge's features include: rich and open networking and
communications, access to IBM and non-IBM databases ,
multi-media components, and access to and use of existing
applications. VisualAge is especially well suited for
developers who build state-of-the art client/server applications
that need to access enterprise applications and data.
VisualAge comes in two versions for building industrial strength
applications: VisualAge for standalone programmers and VisualAge
Team, which includes library support, version control and
configuration management capabilities. VisualAge is the premier
application builder for DB2/2 applications. DB2/2 access and
support is built into the base products of VisualAge and
VisualAge Team. Access to Sybase and Oracle is available as an
optional feature.
VisualAge is an extensible, high-powered client/server
development tool which eliminates possible programming obstacles
end users might encounter using other rapid application
development tools. Because the product uses and generates
Smalltalk, end users benefit from the productivity of a 4GL and
the flexibility of a 3GL. VisualAge contains a complete,
embedded Smalltalk environment, which adheres to industry
standards such as OSF MOTIF, POSIX and X-WINDOWS. It is also
based on the proposed common-base Smalltalk submitted by IBM to
ANSI earlier this year. VisualAge comes complete with a set of
reusable parts. When new parts need to be written, programmers
can take advantage of the full Smalltalk environment within
VisualAge. As an alternative, parts can be written in C or
COBOL, with VisualAge packaging the parts to behave like
objects.
VisualAge will first support IBM's OS/2*, followed shortly by
Windows**, then AIX and other platforms based on customer
demand. The first release of VisualAge will support IBM's
Systems Object Model (SOM)*, which provides component
reusability and interoperability across languages.
IBM's SOMobjects technologies, including the System Object Model
(SOM) and Distributed Systems Object Model (DSOM), were
designed to enable the creation of industrial strength, binary
object classes that are truly reusable and are scalable to
client server configurations. SOM is a language-neutral object
model that allows developers to 'package' object classes in
such a way as to provide an enhanced ability to reuse, modify
and customize them within and among different language
compilers. SOM, initially used in the development of the OS/2
Workplace Shell, will become a core technology for 'packaging'
object frameworks that are designed to be extended by others,
such as the forthcoming OpenDoc compound document architecture
from IBM, Apple, Novell and Wordperfect. SOM has the unique
capability to separate the object's type from its
implementation, resulting in a very flexible and dynamic model
for developing object oriented applications. DSOM, a scalable
extension to SOM, provides transparent, distributed object
services that are fully compliant with the Object Management
Group's CORBA specification.
By integrating the strengths of the VisualAge development
environment with IBM's SOM and DSOM technology, VisualAge
developers, and the end users of the resulting applications,
will benefit from the following enhancements to the VisualAge
development environment:
Reuse of Object Classes Developed in Other Languages: Using
currently available development tools, object classes developed
in one language environment cannot be effectively reused in
another language environment. The VisualAge SOMsupport will
allow VisualAge developers to reuse and subclass object classes
developed in other languages, as well as allow VisualAge
Smalltalk object classes to be reused by other languages (if
they also support SOM). This can significantly increase the
availability of object classes to be used in VisualAge as well
as allowing VisualAge classes to be used effectively in other
development environments (such as C or C++). In all, this will
allow developers to reuse more code, thus resulting in less
costly and risky development.
Support for CORBA Distributed Objects: Client server computing
is quickly becoming a standard requirement in the development
and deployment of new applications. The Object Management
Group's CORBA specification (as fully implemented in IBM's
SOM/DSOM technology) was designed to provide a productive,
flexible and dynamic C/S solution by exploiting the power of
distributed object services. IBM's DSOM is a scalable extension
to SOM that provides local/remote distributed object services
across a heterogeneous network. VisualAge SOMsupport is planned
to support the DSOM extensions and the ability to development
workstation CORBA-based distributed objects (deployment across a
workgroup requires the IBM SOMobjects Workgroup Enablers).
VisualAge SOMsupport can significantly decrease the costs and
risk associated in developing, deploying and adapting client
server applications while enhancing the migration path from
local objects to distributed objects.
Support for SOM-based OS Services: Over time, an increasing
number of operating systems services will be 'packaged' as
SOM object classes and frameworks. The first of these
frameworks was the OS/2 Workplace Shell, which allows developers
to customize, extend and integrate into the Workplace Shell
desktop as well as inherit behavior and characteristics (such as
drag/drop) when developing new applications. OpenDoc, a
compound document architecture being developed by IBM, Apple,
Novell, WordPerfect, and supported by others, will be packaged
as a framework of SOM object classes that can be used in
developing document-centric, collaborative applications.
VisualAge SOMsupport is positioned to exploit these frameworks,
as they are made available, which will help automate the design
and development of a new wave of document-centric, collaborative
applications in a very productive and high quality fashion.
Industry Standard Class Definitions: The SOM interface
definition language fully conforms to the Object Management
Group's CORBA Interface Definition Language (IDL) standard as
does the SOM interface repository (providing runtime access to
class information and definitions).
The VisualAge SOMsupport Smalltalk bindings will evolve to be
compliant with OMG standards as they are made available.
VisualAge SOMsupport classes will, therefore, adhere to
industry standards (CORBA IDL), allowing customers to retain
investments in skills and code. It also provides a mechanism
for interoperability, over time, with other CORBA-compliant
object request brokers (such as Hewlett-Packard's HP ORB,
Sunsoft's DOE and Hyperdesk's DOMS).
IBM's System Object Model (SOM) is not intended to replace
existing object oriented languages (such as Smalltalk). Rather,
it is intended to complement them so that application programs
developed in different language and with different compilers can
share common SOM object class libraries that are CORBA
compliant. SOM also provides a rich set of object oriented
characteristics that can complement existing object oriented
languages (such as Smalltalk and C++) as well as procedural
languages (such as C, COBOL & REXX). In summary, SOM, when
integrated with the VisualAge development environment, can
result in a more productive and powerful set of application
development capabilities.
For more information about VisualAge, call 1-800-IBM-CARY or
talk to us on Compuserve or TalkLink under VISUALAGe. For more
information on the SOMobjects Developers Toolkit please call
1-800-342-6672 or 1-800-465-7999 in Canada.
Trademarks: VisualAge, IBM, SOMobjects, OS/2 are registered and
unregistered trademarks of International Business Machines
Corporation.
Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 1993.
All Rights Reserved.