Despite limitations, Hewlett-Packard readies its HP-UX Taligent layer with SoftBench 3.X
Hewlett-Packard Co admits that the static tool in C++ SoftBench 3.X has its limits. It cannot read in unlimited amounts of code, but then neither can the CenterLine or SparcWorks environments. And there is a trade-off when set against other mechanisms, according to Hewlett-Packard. Taligent Inc is using an alternative product called Sniff+, a C and C++ development environment from Salzburg, Austria company TakeFive Software GmbH, to build its own development tools. Even Hewlett-Packard admires TakeFive’s text-based retriever, but explains that Sniff+ is an acknowledged lightweight system that encompasses only a small part of what SoftBench can do. Moreover, if a programmer’s coding style does not fit the Sniff+ pattern, the system can easily break down, it says. Sniff+ looks for functions such as open parentheses (and closed parentheses) on the same line. But if there is only one parenthesis on a line then it will miss it and the pattern could be incomplete. Taligent has found Sniff+ useful, but then Taligent has not examined the full range of computer-aided software engineering tools available, according to Hewlett-Packard software engineers. Had Taligent been up on HP-UX rather than AIX from the beginning, then SoftBench would have been fine for it, they claim. Although an implementation of SoftBench is up on AIX as the Software Development Environment Workbench/6000, it is not being used by Taligent, nor is it included in the development environment model. However, Hewlett-Packard says Taligent is still weighing up the possibility of using SoftBench, but would take a computer-based approach that has a deeper level of semantic infrastructure than Sniff+, if it did. Hewlett is already using SoftBench on the layered version of Taligent it has up unde HP-UX internally and will provide it as the development environment for Taligent under HP-UX now being prepared. A native version of Taligent – that is the TalOS up on Precision Architecture RISC – is not precluded from the agreement between Taligent, its investors and Hewlett-Packard, but it has not been decided yet either. Hewlett already describes Taligent as a rich framework environment and expects most software to be inherited with only small pieces of new code having to be added to applications. There is also no evidence yet of any performance penalty for offering a layered product rather than a native environment.
Softbench 4.0 is on the horizon, complete with distributed application thanks to Orb-Plus
SoftBench 4.0 is on the horizon. It will include support for distributed application development via links to Hewlett-Packard Co’s ORB-Plus object request broker, the product implementation of its long-in-the-works Distributed Object Management Facility, although SoftBench will not actually be delivered fitted with the ORB. There will be increased support for C++ as C++ becomes more mainstream, plus Cobol, C, Pascal and Ada in those versions of the tool set. At the moment Distributed SmallTalk, Hewlett-Packard’s distributed, Distributed Object Management Facility-enabled implementation of ParcPlace Systems Inc VisualWorks, is a richer and more powerful environment than C++ for building distributed applications, Hewlett says. Its easier structure makes it especially attractive to developers moving over from the world of Cobol programming. Although Hewlett-Packard is gradually moving Distributed SmallTalk functionality and tools over to C++, and will make dealing with legacy applications under C++ easier than it is today, SmallTalk already incorporates stuff like an inference repository browser, remote debugger and an Instruction Definition Language generator which the C++ development environment does not: and it is distributed. SoftBench is now the responsibility of James Davis, general manager of Hewlett’s Software Engineering Systems Division in Fort Collins, Colorado, who replaces Chung Tung who left Hewlett-Packard for Wilsonville, Oregon and Mentor Graphics Inc back in Dec
ember. She reports to Tilman Schad, general manager of the software business unit in Hewlett-Packard’s computer systems arm.
Distributed Computing Environment ides mapped into C++ object layer
Hewlett-Packard Co says its planned OODCE/9000 C++ layer removes the need for working directly with the 400-odd Distributed Computing Environment application programming interfaces that define how Distributed Computing Environment applications communicate with each other and what use is made of Distributed Computing Environment services such as security. Distributed Computing Environment Application Programming Interface commands are encapsulated into C++ client and server classes – for creating re-usable objects – and they have a default Distributed Computing Environment behaviour.
C Wrappers
But they’re not C++ wrappers, Hewlett-Packard says. The idea is that classes can be used to access Distributed Computing Environment services at a higher level without having to learn all the details of the Distributed Computing Environment Application Programming Interface. In essence, Hewlett-Packard has mapped basic Distributed Computing Environment concepts in C++ language features. C++ classes, which Hewlett-Packard calls Manager Classes instead of Distributed Computing Environment’s Manager Functions, have member functions defined for each operation declared in the Instruction Definition Language specification. Objects of the classes reside in the server program and service client requests. Hewlett-Packard calls them Manager Objects, each has its own identifier. Client access Manager Objects via proxy Client Objects, which are based on the Interface Definition Language Application Programming Interface and generate remote calls to the server. Hewlett-Packard says it will be providing 20 pre-defined classes and objects in OODCE/9000, including those for implementing Manager Class functionality and writing Server Main function and client programs without dealing directly with the Distributed Computing Environment Application Programming Interfaces. Hewlett-Packard says the combination of these features will provide faster development times, greater code re-use and easier maintenance because C++ applications typically require less lines of source code. Hewlett-Packard says it expects the performance OODCE/9000 applications to be within 5% of regular C-based applications. Out in August, OODCE/9000 is $3,000 plus $1,000 for each subsequent developer. It requires DCE/9000 and Hewlett-Packard’s C++ compiler. There are hundreds of users of its Distributed Computing Environment, it says; the likes of Motorola Inc and Mead Data Central Inc are testing OODCE/9000.
