Getting Close to Objects: Object-Focused Programming
Environments
Bay-Wei Chang,
David Ungar,
and
Randall B. Smith
Abstract:
Current visual programming environments make use of
views and tools to present objects. These view-focused
environments provide great functionality at the expense of
distancing the objects behind the intermediary layers of
views and tools. We propose the object-focused model,
which attempts to foster the notion that objects themselves
are directly available for interaction. Unique, directly
manipulable representations of objects make them
immediate, and basing functionality on the object rather
than on extrinsic tools makes them the primary loci of
action. But although immediacy and primacy contribute to
the sense of concreteness of the objects, discarding
conventional views and tools potentially restrict the
functionality of the environment. Fortunately, by being
extremely faithful to the notion of concreteness of objects,
two principles emerge that allow object-focused
environments to match the functionality of view-focused
environments. The principle of availability makes
functionality of objects accessible across contexts, and the
principle of liveliness allows objects to participate in
multiple contexts while retaining concreteness. All these
elements help make objects seem more real in the object-
focused environment, hopefully lessening some of the
cognitive burden of programming by reducing the distance
between the programmer's mental model of objects and the
environment's representation of objects. Programmers can
get the sense that the objects on the screen are the objects in
the program, and thus can think about working with objects
rather than manipulating the environment.
In Visual Object-Oriented Programming, Margaret Burnett,
Adele Goldberg, and Ted Lewis, eds., Prentice-Hall, 1995, pp. 185-198.
To get the PostScript file, click
here.
Back to bibliography