Communication-centered architecture is the new form of architecture that has extended and replaced earlier architectures. It promises to handle unlimited size and complexity, higher level of reuse through components, and distributed ownership and control. It is surprisingly different and difficult, even though it starts from objects. The difficulties partly stem from specific technologies such as CORBA, RMI, EJB, and transaction monitors. But the main challenge is on a higher level; changing one's mindset from the self-contained application to the idea of collaborating objects working within a vast world of existing components. The tutorial will focus on the Why, the What and the How of communication-centered architectures.

Attendee Background: The intended audience is senior programmers, information architects and managers who are interested in information systems architecture and development strategy. Participants should know OO programming and understand basic WWW concepts. The examples will be taken from the world of Java, but we do not assume prior knowledge of the Java language, components or distribution technologies.

Trygve Reenskaug has 35 years experience in developing industrial strength software products combined with software engineering research. His firsts include structured programming and data base oriented architectures in the early sixties; object oriented applications and personal computer systems in the early seventies; experimental Model-View-Controller, the world's first reusable object-oriented framework, in 1979; and the premier book on role modeling in 1995. He is currently developing a method for the practical application of distribution technology.

Lasse Bjerde is R&D Manager at Numerica Taskon. He has 15 years experience in the object-oriented paradigm. He has teaching experience from several courses in the OOram method, UML and general OO. He has been part of the development team behind the OOram Method and Tools since the beginning of the nineties. He is currently heading several international projects dealing with distributed development.