Following Technology Trends What will the future bring?
From "Migration",  Access to Wang, July 1995
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Technological change is appearing everywhere, in the information systems industries, in the popular press and in the business world. And yet many of us in the information business are still working much as we did a decade or more ago.

Technical users of the Wang VS have been particularly resistant to changes in technology pioneered in other areas of the industry, partly because many aspects of our platform are still functional and cost-effective. But the shifting sands of technological change are driven by forces more powerful than mere reason; ask anyone who championed the Beta VCR format a while back. Therefore, it seems prudent to take a look up from our workstations and consider some industry trends.

I'll risk ridicule and put my beliefs about technology on the line to stimulate some debate on the effects these trends have on our lives. Like other such predictions, the real test will take place several years down the road - when we can look back and see how accurate these prophecies were.

The focus of this discussion will be on the roles now played by VS technical users: software development and support within small-to-medium organizations. This differs from other industry predictions that are more concerned with activity in large software development houses and major employers.

Visual Programming

It's no secret that the user and management worlds have rallied to support GUI (Graphical User Interface) applications, but the need for custom applications remains. And the most likely way that these custom applications will be developed is through visual programming tools such as Microsoft's Visual Basic, Powersoft's PowerBuilder, Borland's Delphi and others like them, since the extreme complexity of graphical development is best coded by machines, not humans.

One interesting aspect of the trend towards visual programming languages is their ability to fit shrink-wrapped products into roles previously filled by programming languages. For example, applications could use the powerful calculating engine of a PC spreadsheet product instead of developing programming code to support such complex needs; the results of report programs could be funneled into a word processor for final presentation rather than to dull, inflexible reports.

Network Interconnectivity

After years of unfulfilled promise, the network era has finally arrived. The popularity of the Internet has shown the value of interoperable network products, and vendors have rushed to make such interconnections possible. Reliable protocols derived from the Internet experience - including FTP (File Transfer Protocol), Telnet, Gopher, the World Wide Web and others - have become standards for interoperability. It is no longer uncommon to find systems using Windows, Windows NT, OS/2, Macintosh OS and other environments shouldering the tasks of Internet services that were formerly dominated by Unix and Digital VAX systems.

Remote access to network services has also increased, primarily using the SLIP (Serial Line/Internet Protocol) and PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) services and cheap dial-up connections. Both protocols have been around for several years, but interest has surged with the popularity of the Microsoft Windows Sockets (Winsock) specification for network applications and the resulting surge in snap-in network client products. Winsock-compatible applications can be readily mixed, providing software vendors with an easy target for their development and users with a large selection of compatible modules. The result: It is now feasible to provide full network services with the same effort required for traditional host/terminal arrangements.

The World Wide Web

By providing a point-and-click interface to a vast array of information, the WWW medium is one of the primary factors driving interest in the Internet. While it is too soon to speculate about the ultimate survival of the Web in its present form, there are two aspects of Web technology that will provide a foundation for applications to come:

• Universal Resource Locators (URLs): The address for a Web page or other resource. These addresses uniquely specify resources on the Internet, allowing near-immediate access from anywhere in the world.

• Hypertext Markup Language (HTML): The underlying language of the WWW. Other multimedia development languages have more features, but HTML is interesting because it is universal and easy to use. It is now possible to create sophisticated presentations - including graphics, sound and links to other information anywhere in the world - without extensive knowledge of programming.

Many have found that a Web page has helped their business. Some are also using the same technology for internal publications: The hyperlink medium is particularly well-suited to the presentation of complex, multi-dimensional information, such as benefit summaries.

Electronic Mail

Opening up your e-mail system to others may reveal a vital link to your customers and trading partners. Service organizations have found that e-mail access has allowed them to improve customer service and balance their staffing requirements by queuing customer requests for information. Some technical firms use email for product support. And e-mail can be used to pass business information electronically-purchase orders, customer requests, claims-that would ordinarily have to be re-keyed from paper.

The C Language

While much of the skill of the development world has turned to visual programming, knowledge of C remains a requirement. It is unlikely that many of us will be using C for business applications, but C constructs are used in many other settings, and it is an excellent utility language for PC and Unix systems. In short, knowledge of C could be compared to a college degree: It matters more that you have it than whether or not you can use it.

Line-Of-Business Skills

In The Information Asset (1993, Yourdon Press), John Boddie describes traditional data processing professionals as those who view the goals of their craft as independent from the primary goals of the businesses they support. It was common in the past for DP personnel to move among all types of businesses without much need to get intimate knowledge of their workings; instead, improvements in information services were sought and judged solely for their effect on the programming craft-not on improvements to the business.

With the arrival of powerful informational tools in the end user world, it is no longer enough to provide technical skills: The new DP function also includes business consulting. DP staffs will no longer have full control over access to business information, losing much of their mandate to protect the informational assets of the organization. Instead of imposing restrictions, new DP professionals must earn the trust of the user community by providing guidance rather than control. This trust can only be won if there is a thorough understanding of the organization's goals and its programming requirements.

Items Not Mentioned

By now you've probably noticed that I have avoided a few popular (and many not- so-popular) technologies, such as:

• COBOL: No other language has endured the ridicule that COBOL has, nor survived with as many lines of code intact. And yet, its use for further development seems doomed, due to management perception that it is without function. The excellent COBOL products now on the market will be joined by still better products, but ultimately the unfavorable image of COBOL in the minds of decision-makers will reduce its use.

• Proprietary systems: One of the obvious lessons of the last few years is that proprietary systems are unfashionable and, therefore, "bad." One of the lessons still not learned is that open systems have their own problems and are not automatically "good;" we will all miss some features of our lost proprietary environments. Nevertheless, the success of interoperable (a.k.a. open) systems has left management with the perception that all deviations from standards are bad, so we will see continued decline in such systems.

• C++: While a large amount of software development is occurring in this language - and much of the shrink-wrapped market will continue to he developed with it - I predict that C++ will never become a corporate development language of note. C++ requires religious zeal to master, requiring more involvement in the development process rather than less, and most will find faster and easier means, especially through visual programming.

• Windows 95: Its interface will confuse long-time Windows users, though new users will find it acceptable. Corporate support will be complicated by the need for knowledge of three or more graphical milieus: old Windows, new Windows and other (0512, NT, X). The need for so many different skill sets will cause organizational support crews to stall, slowing the growth of Win95.

• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): The initial successes of EDI in the manufacturing and distribution industries led to the assumption that it would be similarly effective in all other types of inter-company information exchange. This prediction has not come true-particularly for service businesses, where person-to-person informational needs often outweigh the assembly of large amounts of codified data. Standards-based EDI has always been difficult to implement, and small volumes of data do not warrant the costs. The result: Small and medium businesses have chosen to use informal EDI through dial-up communications, electronic mail, fax and voice-response systems. This trend will gain momentum, leading to more use of document-based information exchange (free- form fields), instead of the present data base model (fixed fields).

• Unix: Through customer demands and the collaboration of key systems vendors, Unix systems have finally achieved some measure of interoperability. It is now possible to move most applications between various dialects of Unix without much difficulty, even versions that are inexpensive or free. Native development under Unix is comparatively rare; more often, Unix is used to host a server, to emulate a foreign environment (like the Wang VS) or for its communications prowess. As emulation of legacy systems falls away and new development proceeds, server and application functions will increasingly move to visual environments like NT, making Unix irrelevant.

• The Information Superhighwav: I choose to believe the definition for this concept puts entertainment as its primary charter, not information. I do not see it having a large effect on information support for businesses. Interconnected private and public systems - modeled on the Internet - will provide more relevant service to business needs.

I hope you have found this discussion stimulating. Please voice your opinion (pro or con) and perhaps we can revisit these predictions in the months to come.