Components: what if they gave a revolution and nobody came?

Abstract

There have been three great revolutions in computing technology during the past 50 years: the stored-program computer, high-level languages and component-level programming. Although working programmers are well aware of this last revolution, it seems to have escaped the notice of most everyone else. The author feels that academic researchers are doing little or nothing that touches the subject and apart from trade journals and magazines aimed at developers that publishers have all but ignored it. The component-level programming revolution has already happened in the academic community and in the authors opinion, nobody came. The author starts by giving a brief history of components, detailing the controls (tools that allow developers to create visually pleasing dialog boxes by drawing such devices as buttons), visual innovations and the data control of Visual Basic. The author moves on to current component technology. He explains ActiveX and other recent technological developments (like dynamic instantiation and universal standard). He finishes by looking into the future of component technology, explaining semipersistence and marketing flexibility and solutions to transmitting problems.