Squeak smalltalk adventure

Client server, Object oriented programming

While it was really convenient to use Clipper for simple programming jobs such as Inventory and Accounting programs using only personal computers to keep track of a store's daily transactions, there arose a need to integrate various services and functions using personal computers. Networking became a necessity and not merely a luxury which only large companies can afford to have. There were some small networking companies which offered simple peer-to-peer networking but the acknowledged king of the hill was Novell Netware.

I had the good forture to try Novell and it was an experience to make one re-think one's position in the computing world. I had gotten comfortable programming simple tasks on a stand-alone computer with its own hard disk to store data in. Now, clients were asking if it was possible to have several people access the same data source at the same time. While no programmer would ever say it could not be done, one needed experience and a lot of research to convert a simple stand-alone program to something where multiple users could use it.

The Big Guns of the computing world led by IBM and Microsoft started to bring their message to the masses and the buzzword was "client server". The costs of putting together an application using the client/server software offered by the Big Boys were quite prohibitive and small independent programmers had to resort to various ad-hoc solutions to mimic ths capabilities of the large-scale software solutions.

Various smaller companies selling dBase-like products transitioned into a kind of client-server architecture where back-end databases were independent of the front end tools. Added to this mix was the adoption of these companies of object-oriented principles pioneered by the Smalltalk team of Xerox. That Microsoft finally had a graphical user interface that worked fast enough to satisfy users also served to fuel the desire to be "Windows-based", whatever that meant to people who wanted something snappy and new-fangled.
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posted by underdog @ 4:22 AM