Color Code:
| Keynotes |
| Technical Presentations |
| Personal Interaction |
5th December 2006
6th December 2006
| Time | |
| 09:00 - 09:45 | The Open Unified Process: Agile, Open Source and Straightforward ( Scott Ambler, Practice Leader, IBM Methods Group) |
| 09:45 - 10:30 | Web 2.0 with Seaside ( Michel Bany, Cincom Systems) |
| 10:30 - 11:15 | Web Application Development, Deployment and Management ( James A. Robertson, Cincom Systems) |
| 11:15 - 11:45 | Coffee Break |
| 11:45 - 13:15 | Feedback fromUsers – Discussion Forum ( Cincom Smalltalk STAR Team, Cincom Systems) |
| 13:15 - 14:00 | Thank You and Good Bye, afterwards Lunch |
| 14:00 - 18:00 |
“Birds of a Feather” (BoF) Sessions
|
Color Code:
| Keynotes |
| Technical Presentations |
| Personal Interaction |
Following the feedback of our attendees of the Cincom Smalltalk User Conference 2004 we have evolved the concept of the conference:
- Each day starts with a keynote from highly respected experts of the IT industry.
- At the beginning of the conference Cincom management will give you an update on the vision and strategy for Cincom Smalltalk.
- During the day experts from Cincom and Cincom's partners and customers will present interesting technical solutions, live demos and give technical guidance.
- As third important component the conference offers time and space for direct interaction with Cincomers as well as among each others:
- During the conference there will be the opportunity to Meet the Experts in a seperate room to discuss the presented items - or other - more in detail.
- In the Feedback fromUsers – Discussion Forum session you'll have the opportunity to tell the STAR Team ( Suzanne Fortman, James A. Robertson) in a forum what you think we should add or enhance in our product and services offering to meet your specific needs. This information will be taken into account together with the feedback from other events and channels into our plannings for the further direction of Cincom Smalltalk.
- In the Birds of a Feather sessions you'll have the opportunity to directly discuss issues in detail with other interested people from Cincom and from the user community. Please send us an email to infode@cincom.com if you wish a certain topic to be scheduled as a BoF.
- And last but not least by means of the "ShortCuts - User Presentations" session we are offering our attendees the opportunity to briefly present interesting solutions, extensions, tools etc.. This track gives Cincom Smalltalk users the chance to talk about technical solutions they are proud of. Send a short description for a 15 minutes demo/presentation to infode@cincom.com. Deadline: November 15. We will select out of all received suggestions.
- We will not only serve food for the brain: during the Coffee Breaks you'll get refreshments and we'll also invite you to Lunch and Dinner. During these times you'll have the opportunity to talk to Cincomers in a relaxed casual athmosphere. And of course you'll be able to exchange your experiences, opinions, questions and solutions with other users of Cincom Smalltalk.
Keynotes
Keynote - Small Matters can Matter a lot ( George Bosworth)
How we think of things matters. Small changes in point of view and/or small insights into what matters can have large effects on what and how we build software, and perhaps most interestingly on our conceptions of what software really is. For me, Smalltalk environments have often caused me to view things in new ways that have had profound effects on my points of view. That this has been true for almost 25 years across scales from the tiny PC applications of the early eighties to the massive network services common today is a testament that something truly intriguing is at work. Considering the next set of challenges facing our industry as the hardware and the networks go thru yet another almost incomprehensible change in scales, anything that might give us more and better insights into what really matters would be welcomed. In that spirit, spending some time exploring what has enabled Smalltalk to continually challenge my orthodoxies might be enlightening
Exploratory Modelling – One Team’s Approach at SAP ( Heinz Ulrich Roggenkemper, Executive Vice President of Development, SAP Labs; Georg Heeg, Founder of Georg Heeg eK)
The Open Unified Process: Agile, Open Source and Straightforward ( Scott Ambler, Practice Leader, IBM Methods Group)
| agileOverview unifiedProcess openUP |
presenter := Presenter new: 'Scott Ambler'.
agileOverview := AgileSoftwareDevelopment new.
unifiedProcess := UnifiedProcess new.
openUP := OpenUnifiedProcess new.
presenter tellLameJoke.
presenter discussIntroduction.
presenter discuss: agileOverview values.
presenter discuss: agileOverview principles.
presenter discuss: unifiedProcess history.
presenter discuss: unifiedProcess asAgileProcess.
presenter discuss: openUP overview.
presenter discuss: openUP whyYouShouldCare.
presenter discuss: openUP whereToGetIt.
presenter demo: openUP.
presenter concludeKeynote.
presenter gotApplause
ifTrue: [ presenter enjoyRestOfConference. ]
else: [ presenter fleeTheScene ].
Talks
The Future of Cincom Smalltalk - Vision and Strategy,
Suzanne Fortman (Cincom Systems)
In this session Suzanne will cover the market direction were taking with Cincom Smalltalk and how we propose to bring more visibility to Smalltalk and the Smalltalk community through various programs. The session will provide an overview of customer and partner programs Cincom has initiated through marketing, education and visibility for Smalltalk applications and services into various vertical markets.
Cincom Smalltalk Product Roadmap, James A. Robertson (Cincom Systems)
I'll be talking about the roadmap for Cincom Smalltalk - where we are, what we are working on, and what we plan to support in the near-medium term.
ObjectStudio8 := VisualWorks -> ObjectStudio. What does it mean to You? (
Andreas Hiltner, Cincom Systems,
Georg Heeg, Georg Heeg eK)
ObjectStudio 8 is the result of merging ObjectStudio with the VisualWorks virtual machine and base image. The talk will show you step by step how the project was done. We will go into some details of the implementation, were the differences of ObjectStudio classic and ObjectStudio8 are and why you should know about them.
Bringing Cincom’s Smalltalks together: VisualWorks for ObjectStudio 8 Users and ObjectStudio 8 for VisualWorks Users ( Mark Grinnell, James A. Robertson, Cincom Systems)
ObjectStudio 8 makes use of many features from VisualWorks. This talk will introduce ObjectStudio users to important aspects of VisualWorks and the VisualWorks development process, such as the VW debugger, the refactoring browser and the Store code respository. We will then show VisualWorks users how ObjectStudio 8 coexists with VisualWorks, demoing how it can be used to create a Windows native GUI interface for a VisualWorks application.
Changing the Engine while the Garage is in Motion: Porting a Large Rapidly-Evolving System to VisualWorks 7 ( Niall Ross, eXtremeMetaProgrammers)
We have all heard of projects that were ordered to port from Smalltalk to Java, C# or whatever, and that delivering no new functionality for years while they were doing the port. Projects that port from one Smalltalk dialect or version to another are allowed no such luxury of freezing the system while they do so. Development continues at the usual frenetic pace in tandem with the port.
However the port is also a development task. If the system is large, with many specific tools and many overrides of system methods, the port may have hard problems to solve and take some time. The porting team must keep their work compatible with the evolving system as they do this. The ordinary developers will not be pleased if complex code is made yet more complex by adding dialect-specific switches and branches. When the port is from a single-namespace dialect to a multiple-namespace dialect, additional issues arise.
John Brant's and Don Robert's Refactoring framework and Alan Knight's Store for Glorp framework are available in several dialects. On them, Niall has built a framework for mapping code from those dialects into Store and VisualWorks 7. He will present this framework, and his experience of using it to port a very large, rapidly-evolving system from VisualWorks 3.1 (non-Envy) to VisualWorks 7.4. He will discuss how to map single-namespace code into a multi-namespace image, how to minimise code changes between the source and target environments, and, where the target requires code changes, how to exploit the framework to avoid polluting the source system code base.
If time permits, Niall will also present a pattern for:structuring model-layer and UI-layer tests to simplify porting.
Moving to ObjectStudio 8 ( Mark Grinnell, Andreas Hiltner, Cincom Systems)
A primary design goal for ObjectStudio 8 is complete code compatibility with existing ObjectStudio applications. With an upgrade this significant though there are some guidelines to keep in mind for sharing code between ObjectStudio 7 and ObjectStudio 8. This talk will describe our goals for compatibility between ObjectStudio 7 and ObjectStudio 8, and we will share our experiences with beta sites upgrading their applications to ObjectStudio 8. Key differences between the versions will be explained, and you will learn what you can do now to prepare for the upgrade and continue to write code that works in both ObjectStudio 7 and ObjectStudio 8.
Introducing SAP NetWeaver Connect for VisualWorks (
Ralf Ehret, SAP;
Taylan Kraus-Wippermann, Georg Heeg eK)
SAP provides collaborative business solutions for all types of industries that have successfully been deployed to more than 36 200 customers worldwide. The power of SAP has now been made available to the VisualWorks developer with SAP NetWeaver Connect for VisualWorks. Conversely the SAP developer now have the powerful modelling capabilities of VisualWorks Smalltalk available to him/her, to be able to quickly respond to new customer requirements and build tailor-made solutions based on SAP NetWeaver.
SAP NetWeaver Connect for VisualWorks provides a service oriented architecture (SOA) that is capable of both using SAP services and exporting Smalltalk objects as services to a SAP application. SAP NetWeaver Connect for VisualWorks uses existing SAP integration technologies (Remote Function Call and WebServices) to provide a uniform service oriented architecture to the Smalltalk developer.
In this presentation we will demonstrate SAP NetWeaver Connect for VisualWorks through examples. We will show how SAP NetWeaver and VisualWorks services are simultaneously used in a real project. An ABAP developer and a Smalltalk developer will demonstrate how to work with SAP NetWeaver Connect for VisualWorks and the main design points will be illustrated both on the NetWeaver and VisualWorks side during the presentation.
Upcoming Store Developments ( Alan Knight, Cincom Systems)
This talk will preview a number of developments upcoming in the Store team-programming environment for VisualWorks Smalltalk. Most notable is the introduction of "shadow compilation". When loading from the database Store now compiles all definitions into a "shadow" namespace, and only installs the code once it has all successfully compiled. This makes the loading process more robust, as failed loads can be cleanly removed by just discarding the shadow. Other topics include a major update of the merge tool user interface, various smaller enhancements, and discussion of longer-term features including "projects" for configuration management and handling of streams of versions.
Entity-Control-Boundary: Architectural Patterns in Computer-Aided Timetable Construction System RUT-K ( Jochen Eckert, DB Systems)
RUT-K ("Rechnerunterstütztes Trassenmanagement Konstruktion") is a multi-user client-server system for the timetable management of big railway systems. It is used by Deutsche Bahn Netz AG to manage timetables of all trains on DB tracks in Germany.
A graphical and highly interactive user interface enables the timetable managers to adjust every train for individual characteristics, running tracks and stop times to give a feasible and stable overall timetable.
I want to elaborate in this presentation on the relevant architectural aspects of RUT-K. RUT-K has to cope with involved business logic, use case control and multi-user action. The structure of the software system is presented separating entity, controller and boundary concerns. These concerns show up on multiple levels – control is not only important in direct user interaction via the GUI, but control components are also crucial on a level where compliance of business domain with overall rules and consistent multi-user data management are at stake.
Don’t talk to Strangers – Secure Communications ( Martin Kobetic, Cincom Systems)
In this presentation we will go through the process of setting up a Web Service client and server using SSL for secure communication. We will discuss various capabilities of SSL and also necessary supporting infrastructure, for example X.509 certificates. As time permits we will conclude with a review of some complementary security mechanisms and other practical aspects, for example performance considerations.
Between Desert and Jungle – On the Way to an Efficient and Maintainable Test Framework ( Torsten Happ, Uwe Liebold, AMD)
CEI Baseline is a key application supporting AMD’s Automated Precision Manufacturing (APM). As a “central nervous system” consisting of more than 200 AMD patented and patent-pending technologies, APM provides for dynamic, real-time adjustments to fab processes.
CEI Baseline is an application that represents a generic framework for the development of equipment interfaces to connect production equipment to the Manufacturing Execution System (MES).
Dynamics in the semiconductor industry and continuously changing requirements have moved testing more and more into focus. Testing has become a vital aspect in the development of ever more sophisticated software.
While a product continues to evolve against a background of rapidly growing requirements, existing functionality must be secured by well-designed, efficient tests within a manageable scope. At the same time, developing tests to verify new capability must not be neglected nor allowed to get out of step with regression testing for the current functionality.
We are going to describe our problems, propose solutions and show examples of our tools as well as present a vision of where we want to go.
Advanced Object-Relational Mapping with Glorp ( Alan Knight, Cincom Systems)
Glorp is an open-source library for mapping Smalltalk objects to and from relational databases. It includes a number of powerful features. This talk will give a brief overview of Glorp architecture and then explore some of these advanced features. Topics will include the use of functions and subselects in queries and in mappings, mappings to collections of simple types and to dictionaries, query optimizations, dynamically reading and manipulating database schema and descriptor information, and mapping to schemas that are not well-matched to the object model.
Web Services ( Martin Kobetic, Cincom Systems)
This will be a practical demonstration of how to build and access Web Services using VisualWorks. We will focus on demonstration of available tools when dealing with various use cases:
- how to access an external Web Service
- how to deploy a Smalltalk application as a Web Service
As time permits we will discuss architectural aspects and alternatives that are available in VisualWorks.
Short Cuts: User Presentations
- Cognitone, Mr Andre Schnoor: “Complex Multi Media Applications – Secure Deployment for the Mass Market”
- Gehe, Mr Jan Lukes: “Store More Like ENVY”
- Schweizerische Nationalbank, Mr Alfred Wullschleger: “Little Exercise in Smalltalk: A Dynamically-Defined State Model Not Based on the State Pattern”
- Steinmayr Net Intelligence, Mr Uwe Danzeglocke: “An ITIL-Compliant CMDB Solution – Developing Standard Software for Different Platforms”
Web 2.0 with Seaside ( Michel Bany, Cincom Systems)
Web 2.0 is a term that designates a new way of making business on the Internet. It also designates the set of techniques that are used by these new businesses, like XML, XHTML, CSS, RSS, Javascript, Ajax and Comet. As a mature Web application framework, Seaside has been exploiting most of the Web 2.0 techniques a long time before this term was actually coined. This presentation will explain how to add auto-completion, drag and drop, visual effects, instant feedback and server push to your Seaside applications without writing a single line of Javascript.
Web Application Development, Deployment and Management ( James A. Robertson, Cincom Systems)
Four years ago, I was looking for a way to create a better web presence for the product I work with – I’m the Product Manager for Cincom Smalltalk. At the time, I had started to notice web logs. We already ran a few internal wikis, and one public wiki. I thought that creating a blog, centered around the promotion of our product, and on issues in software development in general could be adding significantly to Cincom Smalltalk's visibility. To that end, I wrote a simple blog server.
When I first implemented the server, I had only minimal understanding of “standard” web technology – server pages, Javascript and servlets. When I had built web applications before, I had used tools that abstracted all of that away from the developer. On the one hand, that made initial development simple. On the other hand, it made it difficult to make use of CSS, Javascript and other web technologies that make customization easier. What I’ve learned over the past few years is how to maintain, extend, and scale a web application – while it’s running.
This presentation will be a “lessons learned” perspective on building, deploying and maintaining a Cincom Smalltalk based web application server.
Speakers
Scott Ambler, IBM, Canada, USA
Scott W. Ambler is the Practice Leader Agile Development at IBM Corporation. Scott works in the IBM Methods group developing process materials and travels the world helping clients understand and adopt the software processes which are right for them. Scott is an award-winning author of several books, including books focused on the Unified Process, agile software development, the Unified Modeling language, and CMM-based development. Scott is a regular speaker at international IT conferences and is a contributing editor with Dr. Dobb’s Journal.
Prior to working for IBM, Scott led the development of several software processes, including Agile Modeling (AM), Agile Data (AD), Enterprise Unified Process (EUP), and Agile Unified Process (AUP) methodologies.
Scott holds a BSC in Computer Science and a Master of Information Science from the University of Toronto.
Michel Bany, Senior Consultant, Cincom Systems, Switzerland
Michel Bany is a technology consultant working for Cincom at the Geneva office in Switzerland. Over the last 30 years he has helped many customers to use Cincom technology like databases, transaction servers and programming languages mainly on IBM mainframes to build successful solutions in various business areas like manufacturing, banking, insurance, retail, government. He has been interested in Smalltalk since 1990 and became a Smalltalk consultant when Cincom acquired ObjectStudio in 1995. He contributed many ObjectStudio goodies. He is the maintainer of the Seaside port for Cincom Smalltalk VisualWorks.
George Bosworth started his 35 year struggle with computer literacy by operating aging IBM 7090's at the Jet Propullsion Laboratory while going to college. Almost 10 years of bouncing around doing everything form embedded airborne weather data callection to microcoded furniture and hospital billing systems brought little relief. Even a microcoded UCSD pascal bytcode virtual machine for an exotic high speed parrallel communications computer left more questions than answers. A glimmer of hope came with working on a new Olivetti computing platform, and thru some fortuitous happenstances this lead to some coworkers and I founding Digitalk in 1983 and my full immersion into Smalltalk. Over a decade later Digitlak merged into ParcPlace Systems and in the last part of 1997 I headed off to Redmond as one of the lead architects on what eventually became the Common Language Runtime (CLR). After almost 7 years I left Microsft after having been an architect on a variety of projects from code generation frameworks to high capacity data base service brokers to web scale messaging frameworks to device context specific infrastructures.Jochen Eckert, DB Systems, Germany
Jochen Eckert is consulting both in IT-technical and business aspects of mathematical modelling, planning, post-processing and analysis of real data of the transport process.
A decade ago he entered Deutsche Bahn AG's IT-filiate, today named DB Systems GmbH, with a background in simulational number crunching on super computers. There he started out as a freshman in development of OO client-server software - using Visual Works. After participating in different Smalltalk projects, he entered DB-System's RUT-K-projekt in it's first days, 5 years ago, as a requirement engineer, software developer and designer. He contributed to the design of the business domain, routing algorithms, multi-user data management, XML-interfaces and the object relational persistence framework of RUT-K.
Ralf Ehret, SAP, Germany
Ralf is a development architect at SAP. He joined SAP in April 1998 as a developer working with HR and Workforce Management software before moving on to the Business Process Renovation Team. One of his first challenges was to evaluate Smalltalk as a tool for rapid prototyping. Together with consultants from Georg Heeg eK he has successfully completed two Smalltalk projects at SAP. At the end of these two projects he became the main SAP contact during the VisualWorks to SAP integration project.
Suzanne Fortman, Cincom Smalltalk STAR Team Program Director, Cincom Systems, USA
Suzanne Fortman, Smalltalk STAR Team Program Director, Cincom Systems, Inc. Suzanne has held a number of key marketing positions during her career, including Marketing Director for Digitalk, ParcPlace-Digitalk and ObjectShare, Inc. She has been involved with Smalltalk since 1990.
Mark Grinnell, Cincom Smalltalk ObjectStudio Lead Engineer, Cincom Systems, USA
Mark Grinnell is the manager and a principal software engineer of the ObjectStudio engineering team. He has been associated with ObjectStudio Smalltalk for over 12 years, as both a consultant and a developer. Mark lives and works in New York City.
Torsten Happ, Senior Engineer, Test Lead, AMD Saxony, Germany
Torsten earned a degree in electrical engineering at Technical University, Ilmenau. He joined AMD Saxony in June, 2000 as a software engineer with software development as well as equipment automation experience from previous companies. Today Torsten is the test lead responsible for the maintenance, design, creation and execution of automated and manual tests for the CEI Baseline. He works with both product and test developers to create and maintain effective unit, module, and integration tests to ensure not only the product’s functionality, but also its stability. His responsibilities include interacting closely with the technical lead to reveal and address potential architectural shortcomings.
Georg Heeg, Georg Heeg eK, Germany
Georg Heeg is the founder of Georg Heeg eK Dortmund and Köthen and of Georg Heeg AG Zurich.
Georg’s enterprises provide consulting services in Smalltalk to enterprises and cooperates with Cincom Systems in development and maintenance of the Cincom Smalltalk product offering.
In 1987 Georg founded the first Smalltalk company in Germany. Many Smalltalk projects have profited from consulting by members of his company. Several Cincom Smalltalk products have been created using ideas from Georg’s organizations.
Georg holds a diploma degree in computer science from Dortmund University, Germany.
Andreas Hiltner, Cincom Smalltalk ObjectStudio Lead Engineer, Cincom Systems, Germany
Andreas Hiltner is a lead software engineer for Cincom Smalltalk ObjectStudio 8. He works for Cincom since 1997. Prior to joining Cincom he participated in development and maintenance of a transaction-monitor and database access system on various platforms.
Alan Knight, Cincom Smalltalk VisualWorks Lead Engineer, Cincom Systems, Canada
Alan Knight works for Cincom Systems of Canada, where he is involved in many different projects, including web servers, database mapping, team programming, and deployment. He is the lead on the open source GLORP project, and has worked in relational persistence for many years. He was previously the chief architect for the TOPLink family of products, and was a member of the Sun expert groups on EJB 2.0 and JDO. He is co-author of Mastering ENVY/Developer (Cambridge, 2001) and has written and spoken extensively. He is program chair of Smalltalk Solutions 2007.
Martin Kobetic, Cincom Smalltalk VisualWorks Lead Engineer, Cincom Systems, Canada
Martin Kobetic is the technical lead of the Protocols group in the VisualWorks development team working primarily on various networking/communication frameworks and the security library.
Taylan Kraus-Wippermann, Georg Heeg eK, Germany
Taylan is working for Georg Heeg eK as a senior consultant where he recently celebrated his 10th anniversary. He participated in many successful Smalltalk projects of different industries. He is specialised in developing web applications and user interface in VisualWorks as well as in OO databases. He was the main consultant and mentor of the SAP project. Taylan had his first contact with Smalltalk at University, RWTH Aachen with a diploma thesis about a Smalltalk networking system. In his spare time he likes to go for a long walk with his big Landseer dog.
Uwe Liebold, Member of Technical Staff, AMD Saxony, Germany
Uwe Liebold joined AMD Saxony, Dresden in October, 1997, as a software engineer. As a member of the AMD Fab30 start-up team, he learnt in Austin, Texas in the sister fab, AMD’s Fab25, developing equipment interface programs for factory automation. Written in VisualWorks Smalltalk, these interfaces serve as device drivers to the operating systems, connecting semiconductor equipment on the fab floor with the MES (Manufacturing Execution System). Today Uwe is the technical lead responsible for the development of the CEI Baseline framework for equipment interface development.
Uwe holds a degree in computer science from Technical University (TU), Dresden. Prior to his current employment, he worked as software consultant and section manager in several other companies.
James A. Robertson, Cincom Smalltalk STAR Team Product Manager, Cincom Systems, USA
As Cincom Smalltalk Product Manager, I am responsible for working with sales, engineering and marketing to drive the direction of VisualWorks and ObjectStudio. I got started in Smalltalk quite by accident in 1993 - I was in between consulting assignments at Booz-Allen, my employer at the time. Booz-Allen had a training contract with ParcPlace, but had lost both of their instructors. I got picked because I had some teaching experience - 2 1/2 years of junior high and high school. They put a junior guy with no training experience, but some (about a year) Smalltalk experience, figuring that the two of us would figure it out.
I spent 9 months teaching for Booz Allen, but got lured over to ParcPlace - I decided that I would much rather be where Smalltalk was being created! I spent almost two years teaching the intro class before I moved into sales - as a sales engineer. When Cincom took over VisualWorks in 1999, I came along, retaining my role as a sales engineer. After about a year, I moved up to Product Management, which is where I still am.
Heinz Ulrich Roggenkemper, SAP, USA and Germany
Heinz Ulrich Roggenkemper is the Executive Vice President of Development at SAP Labs, LLC.
Heinz is responsible for the Business Process Renovation team, which strives to improve business processes by renewing them - making changes to something that already exists, leaving its essence intact and giving it new vigor.
Heinz joined SAP AG in 1982 as a systems consultant. From 1986 to 1987, he worked at SAP International in Switzerland, followed by 2 years in the United States as the first president of SAP America and served as the first President of SAP America, Inc. In 1990, he returned into SAP Walldorf’s development organization and was responsible for the development of application link enabling (ALE) and internet applications until 1996. Most recently (until end of 2003), Heinz served as the managing director of SAP Labs North America where he was instrumental in the growth of SAP development activities in North America.
Heinz holds advanced degrees in mathematics and philosophy from Freiburg University, Germany.
Niall Ross, Senior Consultant, eXtremeMetaProgrammers, United Kingdom
After software experience in academia, Niall started working commercially in IT in 1985. He was at first assigned to designing and implementing software engineering process improvements and only three years later did he begin significant writing and delivering of commercial software. This experience taught him that intelligent people can nevertheless form foolish ideas about software engineering if they have not worked at the coding coalface of real large commercial projects.
Learning from this, Niall spent the nineties working on software to manage complex, rapidly-changing telecoms networks. A side effect of this work was that it taught him much about how scale and rate of change affects software. Early in the nineties he discovered Smalltalk. The more he used it, the more he came to recognise its power in this area. This perception was strengthened when he spent a year delivering a telecoms management system in Java.
At the end of the decade, Niall formed his own software company to offer consultancy in meta-data system design, in Smalltalk and in agile methods. He has since worked on a variety of meta-data-driven systems, mostly in the financial domain.
Dave Wood, Managing Director EMEA, Cincom Systems, Belgium