Object oriented implementation and design

As the power and speed of computers increase so too are the number of applications to which they can be applied. Unfortunately software development is not performed using the approach taken by hardware engineers where development proceeds from previous innovations. This has caused software applications to be developed at a much slower rate than their hardware counterparts. Traditional software development usually starts from scratch, despite the commonality that exists between various applications. The Object Oriented Approach is different from the conventional approach in th a t it encourages the reusing and extending of existing software modules in a manner similar to hard ware development. The characteristics of the approach (i.e. inheritance, encapsulation and dynamic binding) signals the need for new methodologies and new implementation techniques. Using the Object Oriented language Objective-C for the creation of an “Integrated Management Process Workbench” various issues associated with this approach are discussed in this text. The “Integrated Management Process Workbench” was an Esprit project in which Dublin City University was involved along with a number of partners from sites throughout Europe. The Calendar and Risk Analysis tools developed in Dublin for the workbench provided the development application on which the discussion is centered