Software engineering

This business is being altered by two factors: object-oriented programming techniques, and client-server technologies. Neither is exactly new, but they have finally reached the stage of development where they are prepared to enter full-scale deployment. While both are sometimes confused with markets, they are in fact valid programming techniques. Now they are being widely accepted after some years of discussion between tool and software-application developers. Both technologies promise better deployment and utilization of current and future resources. Client-server techniques distribute processing tasks across the network, letting the systems or software best suited to a particular task handle it. Client-server is somewhat similar to distributed processing, which was all the rage several years ago, except that task distribution is based more on functional fit than on processor availability. Object-oriented technology lets an object/spl minus/a software entity consisting of the data for an action and the associated action/spl minus/be reused in different parts of the application, much as an engineered hardware product can use a standard type of resistor or microprocessor.<>