Abstract

Much has been written during the last few years about the benefits of object technology and the ways in which such technologies are likely to change the development of computer-based information systems. Many researchers have focused their attentions on the advantages of object technology over more traditional Structured methods and the issues that need to be addressed by organisations moving to an object-oriented approach to information systems development. Although much has been claimed about the impact of object technologies and a number of attempts have been made to predict the future uptake of these technologies, there appears to be little evidence to indicate the actual levels of usage by practitioners at present.

This paper describes a recent investigation, the purpose of which was to attempt to establish where the IT industry in the U.K. currently stands in relation to object technology. The investigation attempted to determine the extent to which object technology is currently used, the characteristics of the projects on which it is used and the outcome of these projects. Although primarily concerned with the use of object technology, comparisons are made with non object-oriented approaches to IS development.