Overview

Technical explanation of Shared Object Management, with a meaningless diagram.

• SOM is a pattern-centric toolkit for managing data flow between clients and servers.
• Domain objects are stored in type-safe repositories, which are automatically synchronised across the network using object migration.
• The SOM architecture is extensible, allowing new features - such as LESBOS - to be plugged in as required.
• WART is bundled with SOM to support visualisation of managed data.

Culture

Description of the phenomenon that is Shared Object Management.

SOM is much more than a piece of middleware. SOM is an entire culture. New ways of team-working were founded in its midsts. New avenues of inspiration were discovered by SOMmers, and these raised coding standards to previously unattained heights! Outdoor coffee breaks, lunch-time tours of the surrounding countryside, and - like the Fathers of Western Philosophy 2500 years earlier - symposiums (dinner parties) were all used as lively forums for discussion of pertinent SOM issues.

Glossary

The following glossary of terms provides a flavour of SOM culture.

• Lunch-time Progress Meeting (LPM) A lunch time gathering of SOM team members for the purposes of review and evaluation. Items reviewed and evaluated were: Somerset ales, Wells tea shop food and a jumbo pot of Earl Grey.
• Guest Chairman A non-team member invited to a LPM to encourage company cross-fertilisation. Guest chairmen included Liz, Bill, Andy, Yorick and Jason.
• Outdoor Coffee Break Mid-morning or mid-afternoon team meeting for the purposes of getting outside and enjoying clement weather. This also acted as a smoking break for certain team members.
• SOMnolence State between sleeping and waking. The state of SOM team members after a LPM.
• Priddy Sheep Flu Particularly virulent form of ovine influenza that mysteriously mutated to infect the SOM team during a LPM in Priddy.
• "It's Never Easy/ Just Gets Easier" Paradox Maxim that explains why using SOM components was "never easy" and yet at the same time "just got easier" (see point 1 of the SOM/WART FAQ).
• Software Farm Utopian vision of the ideal working environment in which developers combine agricultural self-sufficiency with software engineering in an idyllic countryside setting.
• Good Craiken Irish sea monster assumed to inhabit the seas arround the Scilly Isles - the mythical location of Software Farm.
• Pyrkism A solution for which there is no requirement.
• Sandwich Verbiage Competition Challenge to find the most over-indulgent description of a sandwich product. e.g. "A medley of beans with sweetcorn and cheese, nacho cheese dip and mixed lettuce in a plain tortilla wrap."

Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)

The main question frequently asked by frustrated non-team members.

• Question Why is it, whenever I encounter a problem with SOM, the team`s reply is: "It's never easy!" But when things are going well, the team can often be heard chanting the mantra: "It just gets easier!"?
• Answer This apparent paradox can be explained by the following graph.

Acronyms

Never before have so many unnecessary acronyms been spawned by so few lines of code.

CLAM - Client Lock Activity Manager

FONO - First Object Notification Observer

GUT - Grid Update Toolkit

JISOM - Joint Interactive Shared Object Management

LESBO - Locking Extensions for SOM-Based Objects

PIMP - Proxy Item Management Protocol

POLO - Primary Objects Locking Observer

SLAM - Server Lock Activity Manager

SMUT - Server Manager`s Update Toolkit

WART - Windows Application Refresh Toolkit

WHIT - Windows High-level Interface Toolkit

Object Guru

Become an object guru in less than 30 seconds.

The Object Guru Table was a by-product of the SOM software engineering effort. It demonstrates the power of simple teaching aids, and as such, can transform even the most inveterate Jackson Structured Programmer into an Object Guru in less than thirty seconds.

Usage: Simply pick one word from each column, string together and insert into discussion to sound like an object-oriented engineering guru.

Abstract	Application	Architecture
Extensible	Component	Coordinator
Flexible	Class	Environment
Generic	Method	Framework
Modular	Module	Library
Persistent	Object	Interface
Programmable	Program	Manager
Reusable	Server	System
Virtual	Widget	Toolkit

Manager: Why is your software over budget?
Programmer: Because I was working on an "Extensible Object Toolkit" that will help the company achieve a more Integrated Modular Flexibility*.
Manager: "Er, Excellent. Have a bonus."

(*See 'Management Speak' table)

"Suddenly the management started to take me seriously" - A. N. Other Software Engineer

O`Reilly

Coming soon.... The Definitive Programmer`s Guide! (Cover Design - Jamie Bowen)

Chapter Headings

1. No Business Case? No Worries! - How to get funding for your Fartware

2. Security through Obscurity - Future proofing your career by writing incomprehensible OO frameworks

3. The Software is the Documentation - User Guide

4. It`s Never Easy! - Handling errors in SOM (What do you mean, there are errors in SOM?)

5. It Just Gets Easier! - How SOM is FAD++! (no, not a fad - Fastest Application Development in the whole world, ever)

6. Auntie Patterns - Tips from SOM-team relatives regarding s/w development, e.g. "Keep your fluids up! - you can`t work properly if you`re dehydrated"

7. The Fruit Paradigm - How bananas can make you work smarter... and annoy your team leader :-)