Inventing the Future

Bill Anderson

The coming twelve months promise many interesting developments in the world of object programming. We've already seen some major changes this year: Apple and IBM have signed their widely-heralded technology alliance agreement, the Windows user has become a key market for many former "Mac only" developers with the introduction of Windows 3.0, and it seems that every third-party software tools developer has plans to market some sort of object-based application framework that purports to take the pain out of cross-platform development.

These extraordinary changes bring up the question of what MADA should be doing to serve you, its members, in the brave new world ahead. Tony Meadow, in his President's Letter in this issue, mentions the new Charter Committee that will soon be studying the situation in order to recommend implementation of new services and an expansion of MADA's scope of interest. But the committee and the Board need help from you. That's where the 1991 MADA Survey comes in.

1991 MADA Survey

The results of the survey will be published in the December issue of FrameWorks. We've not offered any tee-shirts or other special offers as an incentive to get members to complete the survey and mail it back. Rather, we hope that you'll look at the survey as an opportunity to help the Association, while at the same time contributing to the success and validity of the results-results that you'll want to study and use once they're published.

Special thanks goes to
James Plamondon, Arvid Jedlicka and Don Sawtelle for their substantial input in developing the questions in the survey. A big "tip o' the hat" also goes to Arvid for volunteering to verify and analyze the data once it has been collected. n