| Shadows of Cavernous Shades: Charting the Chiaroscuro of Realistic Computing (2003) | |||||||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||||||
| During the early 1990s, a novel style of programming often referred to as component-oriented programming quickly grew popular as the state-of-the-art in graphical user interface and client/server development on Windows-based personal computers, largely in competition with object-oriented programming, a partly similar, partly different programming paradigm, with which component-orientation is often compared, combined, and confused. Also during the 1990s, the world-wide web spread its arachnoid gossamer over the globe with deep-ranging ramifications for software component technology. Certainly, software componentry is not only a programming paradigm, but is closely wedded to complex component and distributed object infrastructures, such as Microsoftâs COM/COM+/ActiveX and .NET, OMGâs CORBA, and Sunâs Java2 Enterprise Edition, which all provide support for a very wide range of functionality. One particularly intriguing, but widely overlooked development on this arena is the vision of âcooperative business objectsâ gestated by Oliver Sims and implemented by him and his colleagues in the Newi system. In the Newi vision, very high-level, loosely coupled, and independently executable objects modelling real-world concepts and co-operating through semantic messaging replace todayâs âprogrammesâ and âapplicationsâ, transforming the computer into a small world of âbusiness objectsâ. In the present study, the component and business object ideas and technologies will be explored from a number of different angles: The history of these ideas in software development will be traced, the usage of the terms âcomponentâ and âbusiness objectâ analysed and contrasted to various similar concepts, and the technical principles, architectures, and infrastructures, on which they rest, surveyed and probed. This done, the concept of âagendas of computingâ will be introduced and a number of such agendas identified. On the basis of the aforementioned enquiry, a somewhat novel agenda of ârealistic computingâ will be proposed and outlined, being essentially an attempt to integrate several independent developments and trends in computing, which all point towards a common understanding of the computer as a âsmall worldâ, including object-orientation in programming and user interface design, business objects, and 3-D âvirtual realityâ user interfaces. Notably, the business objects taken advantage of here should also be âcomponentsâ unencumbered by the âfragile class problemâ, which has been identified as the Achilles heel of object-oriented programming by many advocates of component-orientation. In a rather detailed study of this problem, I suggest that some restrictions should be put on the object-oriented inheritance mechanism in order to eliminate class fragility. Thus will be born a new programming paradigm, âencapsulated programmingâ, which unifies components and objects into âcapsulesâ, thereby also providing the basis for realistic computing. In addition, I briefly consider how todayâs component infrastructures can be used as a foundation for implementations of the agenda of realistic computing. Finally, I argue that by the amalgamation of a 3-D virtual reality user interface with Newi-style business objects  modified into âcapsulesâ  a decisive step towards a more lifelike, ârealisticâ computer environment can be taken. But thereâs a rub: Shall we really take this step and try to create such a phantasmal 3-D shadow world? What would the success of something like this imply for man and society? Why do we at all contemplate such a preposterous and strange idea? Such questions lead to others such as: What is computing really about? And what are the roots of all this restless technoscientific activity, the Faustian spirit of the West with its âmodern projectâ? In a final section, I try to address such unduly neglected or even shunned questions through a comprehensive enquiry into many branches of knowledge, faith, and speculation, including metaphysics, the history of ideas, the history, sociology, and theory of science and technology, macro- and metahistory, theology, eschatology, ethics, and others as well. Having contemplated a plethora of apparently relevant topics, I attempt to apply the insights garnered to some of the most fundamental and debated problems of computer science. As a result of my studies, I finally come down strongly in favour of our good old ordinary reality and abjure the whole project of realistic computing as an unwholesome techgnostic fantasy. | |||||||||||||
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