Comparison of object-oriented and traditional systems development issues in distributed environments

The client/server model for application development is becoming popular with Australian organisations. While the literature suggests that issues such as task partitioning and task allocation are important in distributed application design, no prior research has been reported on the relative importance of these issues and the adequacy with which current traditional and object-oriented methodologies support distributed application design. The reported research involved a multiple case study of Australian organisations undertaking client/server development. While the same issues appear to be important for both OO and non-OO client/server development, the developers of the OO projects placed greater emphasis on task partitioning, intermodule communications, interprocess communications, and application topology. Current methodologies were found to provide little or no support for these important issues in client/server development. In fact there was no significant difference in the support offered by all methodologies.