The Impact of Distribution on Object-Oriented. . .

Object-oriented computing is now an established technology for software development.However, a number of challenges must be met before the topic can claim to be fully ma-ture. One of the most demanding challenges is posed by the move from single workstationenvironments to the more general case of a distributed system. There is now considerableinterest in the distributed systems community in object-oriented techniques; it is recog-nised that the features of object-oriented computing are highly appropriate for developingcomplex distributed applications. This paper considers the importance of object-orientedtechniques to distributed system designers and discusses the repercussions of such a moveto distributed environments. The impact of distribution on object-oriented computing isexamined in depth. This analysis raises a number of important issues such as the needfor a broader view of object-oriented computing and the requirement for exible approach-es to invocation. Problems relating to persistence and distribution transparency are alsodiscussed. The importance of underlying system support for distributed objectorientedcomputing is stressed and a case study of the Chorus/ COOL environment presented. Thepaper concludes by assessing the state of the art in distributed object-oriented computing.It is argued that further research is required before the advantages of the object-orientedapproach to software development can be realised in a distributed environment. Published in the IEE/BCS Software Engineering Journal special issue on Object ori-ented systems, March 1992, Vol. 7, Number 2.