Communications of the ACM articles from September 1994

Communications of the ACM archives from September 1994

Intuitive equals familiar.
September 1, 1994... One of the most common terms of praise for an interface is to say that it is "intuitive" (the word should have been "intuitable" but we will bow to convention). Yet the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) literature rarely mentions the word, and for...

Computational gifts for the Barney generation. (children raised on the TV program 'Barney and Friends')
September 1, 1994... One hundred fifty years ago, Friedrich Frobel, the father of the kindergarten, gave young children a toolbox of 20 objects and various activities to play with them. These activities involved throwing and catching woolen balls accompanied by...

The new media. (multimedia and hypermedia)
September 1, 1994... Today, big events in high technology include the convergence between information and communication industries (computer, telephone, cable television, and broadcast television), the emphasis by such giants as Microsoft on hypermedia products, and...

Object-oriented software testing.
September 1, 1994... In spite of the advances that object-oriented programming languages and methodologies offer, testing remains necessary. Developers are not infallible. Complex systems can easily produce unanticipated results. The social and economic cost of...

Object-oriented integration testing. (Object-Oriented Software Testing)
September 1, 1994... Object-oriented software development raises important testing issues. Many of these stem from attempts to directly apply theoretical constructs and techniques of traditional software development and testing to object-oriented software. We examine...

Experiences with cluster and class testing. (Object-Oriented Software Testing)
September 1, 1994... Increasingly, software developers are being asked to do more for less. The expectations of the quality of software products are rising, while constraints on cost and human resources are tightening. Many companies, ours included, have incorporated...

Automated testing from object models. (Object-Oriented Software Testing)
September 1, 1994... Object-oriented modeling techniques are popular with software developers, because these techniques offer ways to model or specify software systems with pictures. Many developers are delighted to forgo writing specifications in favor of drawing...

Integrated object-oriented testing and development processes. (Object-Oriented Software Testing)
September 1, 1994... for example. This group can apply corporate standards of quality independent of the pressures of project schedules. Patterns of communication. There are several communications patterns that should be established and supported to facilitate the...

Testing "in a perfect world." (includes related articles) (Object-Oriented Software Testing)
September 1, 1994... The pivotal scene in the film A Perfect World sums up the problems surrounding testing object-oriented (OO) applications in a development environment. In the film, the authorities in charge of a manhunt say "IAPW (In A Perfect World) we would...

Design for testability in object-oriented systems. (Object-Oriented Software Testing)
September 1, 1994... Testability is the relative ease and expense of revealing software faults. This article maps the testability terrain for object-oriented development to assist the reader in finding relatively shorter and cheaper paths to high reliability....

To decode short cryptograms.
September 1, 1994... Short cryptograms, in which an encoded sentence or quotation is to be decoded, are common pastimes of many recreational puzzle enthusiasts. Here is a simple example of the type that can be found in many collections of word games, and daily in...

Cryptography policy.
September 1, 1994... During the past five years, encryption technology has become easily available to both individuals and businesses, affording them a level of security formerly available to only military, national security, and law enforcement agencies. This...

Expectations of security and privacy. (Inside Risks) (Column)
September 1, 1994... Violations of privacy represent serious potential risks in information systems used in applications such as health care, law enforcement, tax collection, and credit checks. Numerous cases of flagrant misuse are noted in the RISKS archives. This...