Editor’s Notes: Overview

Mary Elaine Califf

Welcome to the November/December issue. We have several interesting articles in this issue, starting with a report on MADA's first trip to OOPSLA. Yes, we really are broadening our horizons.

Those of you who were at MADACON last winter or who heard any of the information about Bedrock presented there have probably been wanting some more information about Booch Components. This month we have it. See Scott Taylor's article for a feel for what the Booch Components are and how they work.

Another product we've been wanting an article on for a while is c-tree. Andy Dent provides an article which gives a good feel for what c-tree is and gives an example of how to use it with some sample code.

We have a couple of new series starting this issue. Bob Hablutzel, a name familiar to many of you as a MADA board member and frequent question-answerer on MACAPP3TECH$, has started a question and answer column in which he will answer the question and then go on to discuss related programming topics (so experts may learn something, too). The initial questions will be taken from the net, but he's looking for questions to use from you. Kurt Schmucker is also starting a series of articles on Prograph, starting with this issue's look at what's new in Prograph CPX.

In his article this month, Mikel Evins discusses another topic that will not be familiar to many of you, this time prototype-based object oriented languages. Besides describing them, he discusses NewtonScript as an example of such a language.

In our technical overview section, we have an article on Qd3d. Besides talking about the product, Jonathon Hess discusses the architecture of interactive 3d applications and gives some good advice.

Change

This is becoming to be a familiar theme; I seem to remember a similar heading in the last issue. As you may have heard, MADA is going through changes as we speak. We're adding a second publication, this one specifically designed for PIE developers, initially focused on Newton technology. I would like to welcome Steve Wilson, of MicroGA and QuickApp fame, to the club of MADA editors and to encourage any of you working with Newtons to contact Steve about writing articles.

A second change in MADA that is significant to its publications is the board's recent decision to change the name. The organization will now be called Software Frameworks Association, which is easy to explain in light of our current charter and is clearly associated with this publication.

Under this heading, as editor I would also like to thank Arvid Jedlicka for stepping in to handle much of the publication chores of FrameWorks after Steve Mann's resignation and to thank Patricia McCauley for going beyond her usual duties during the past weeks. These are two people who seldom receive the recognition they deserve from members of the association, and without their work this issue would not be in your hands.

In the future

Some items of interest to look forward to in coming months include: further articles from Mikel Evins, Kurt Schmucker, and Bob Hablutzel; a review of SmalltalkAgents; a review of AAIS Full Control Prolog (an object-oriented Prolog); a review of Qd3d; part 2 of Bo Klintberg's overview of his OSL Scripting Components; articles culled from MADACON presentation, and much, much more.

And as always

FrameWorks is looking for articles that will be helpful to programmers using object oriented technologies. If you have some classes that would be of interest to other programmers, if you know of a useful tool, language, class library, or book that you would like to write an overview or a review of, please contact me.