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UNIX Metrics: Is The Data In Open Systems The Same From Platform To Platform?
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Triad Of Computing In The 21st Century Or, Back To The Future Again
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Testing Applications on the Web: Test Planning for Mobile and Internet-Based Systems
* Includes updates to material on testing Web applications. * Contains new coverage of testing for wireless applications. * From the coauthor of the bestselling testing book of all time. * Each test type is backed up with a testing example and error examples.
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The cult of ISDN
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Integrating object-oriented programming and protected objects in Ada 95
Integrating concurrent and object-oriented programming has been an active research topic since the late 1980's. There is a now a plethora of methods for achieving this integration. The majority of approaches have taken a sequential object-oriented language and made it concurrent. A few approaches have taken a concurrent language and made it object-oriented. The most important of this latter class is the Ada 95 language, which is an extension to the object-based concurrent programming language Ada 83. Arguably, Ada 95 does not fully integrate its models of concurrency and object-oriented programming. For example, neither tasks nor protected objects are extensible. This article discusses ways in which protected objects can be made more extensible.
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User-centeredness, situatedness, and designing the media of computer documentation
User-centeredness has become a concept of much interest in a number of fields. Systems engineering, architecture, usability research and computer documentation, to name a few, are all areas of study which have, to one degree or another, adopted the terminology of user-centered philosophy in order to come to grips with the problem of how to design for users' needs.
While there is much positive to be said about applying user-centered concepts to any discipline that wishes to pursue it, there is also a danger that the concept and philosophy of user-centered design could become, at best, empty rhetoric, and, at worst, fuel for lip service that could serve to undermine the humanitarian goals of a user-centered ethic.
One concept which has already suffered a similar fate is that of “problem-solving.” Problem-solving has become, essentially, a hollow term when used by certain disciplines or institutions. For example, it is commonplace to hear representatives of business and industry refer to the need for 'good problem-solvers' in the world of business.
One answer to this call has been the adoption of the terminology of problem-solving by the business curricula of many college and university business schools. At least one critic of current business school curricula has mentioned that theories of problem-solving have been diluted by the time they reach students (1). My own experience in teaching business writing at two universities has shown similar characteristics. Many of the business majors want to refer to themselves as “good problem-solvers” in their job application letters, but when asked to elaborate on or give an example of this, they often have simplified or inaccurate ideas of what should constitute an understanding of rich and powerful strategies.
Certainly, the research and theory-building of Simon and Newell (2), or G. Polya (3) is applicable to the academic and workplace settings of business, but somehow the terminology of the theory lost its relevance during the translation.
My purpose in this article is to discuss how user-centered computer documentation can avoid a similar fate. At present I fear our direction is veering in the direction of such a fate, and that one step toward correcting our course is to develop a clear theoretical understanding of what user-centeredness means to documentation. This means that although there may be a tacit theory which underlies current applications, it is important to make the theory visible, and thereby illuminate the gaps that may exist.
In addition, my focus will also be upon the contribution that user-centered theory can bring to our understanding of how to design for the different media of computer documentation. As we all know, online and hypermedia documentation is becoming a central charge of our profession, and user-centered theory can go a long way in helping us understand the similarities and differences among the different media.
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The Wired Neighborhood: An Extended Multimedia Conversation
The Institute was preceded by a three-week graduate seminar which I cotaught with a colleague of mine at Miami, Mice Adams. As you might have already guessed, one of the texts for the seminar was The Wired Neighbor. hood. The book raised a number of interesting issues, so interesting that several of the students wished to take the classroom discussions a step further and actually engage Steve in an extended dialogue about his book. Thus, the following collection of reviews consists of a descriptive summary and two reviews of the book by two Miami graduate students (Becky Graham and Mike Rubingh). Also, an in-depth interview with Steve was conducted by three of the students (Becky, Mike, and Chris Colon). A transcript of that interview is included at the end of the review collection. In addition, two distinguished technical communication colleagues who did not attend the conference, Professors Nancy AUen and Ann Blakeslee of Eastern Michigan University, have provided a review for us that consists of an extended email conversation they had this summer concerning The Wired Neighborhood.