| Abstract: | Object-oriented languages are now becoming widely accepted in the computer science community and are beginning to spread into industrial environments. New methodologies are emerging and powerful languages and environments are now available. However, these new techniques and environments are accessible only to experienced programmers, and lack interactive user-friendly interfaces. The democratization of object-oriented environments is made possible by reducing the level of knowledge required for programming, and raising the capabilities of computer-aided design systems. We show by means of a set of examples that Smalltalk lacks only a few graphical tools to make it accessible quickly and easily by novices and to transform it into a visual programming environment. This set of tools were experienced in industrial contexts, and proved successful both as design aids to engineers and as teaching supports to students. |
