I had the good fortune of attending Unidata's "BluePrint 97" last week in Keystone, Colorado (elevation: 9600 feet; Motto "Yes, we have oxygen tanks standing by!"). Among the highlights for me personally was the chance to again see my hero, Dave Barry (http://www.herald.com/tropic/barry/), and to learn a lot of new technologies.

From the moment I arrived, I realized that at this altitude, one could easily get winded performing such tasks as operating a remote control, and realized it was a perfect place to hold a technical conference, as your participants were likely to stay in their seats, perhaps even overnight, than run the risk of dying of oxygen deprivation while attempting something less important, like eating a meal or visiting the restroom. Those brave few who indulged themselves in the fabulous food and alcoholic beverages at the many elegant parties and functions provided ample proof that you don't necessarily need lamp shades to entertain a group.

But let us move on to the important stuff. This was my first Unidata conference and I was endlessly impressed with the vast amounts of technology that Unidata has put into their arsenal over the past few years. The big news of the conference was the announcement of the acquisition of "O2 Technology" (http://www.o2tech.com), a French object technology company that brings to the table their status of being a "world leader in object database management systems and tools technology". This is apparently a very important development in the history and future of Unidata, as expressed in his "Vision of the Future" presentation by David Brunell, the President of Unidata. David's presentation outlined how Object Technology will position Unidata to compete against the major players in the object database market, and allow their their existing "core technology" market base to incorporate this new technology into their existing applications.

It would be difficult to summarize in a mere 800 words all of the exciting technologies presented at this conference, so I'll just focus on the one that I personally found the most exciting. This would have to be Unidata's new RedBack product. In simple terms, RedBack is to Web-based applications what SB+ was to character-based applications. It's a very comprehensive yet easy to use utility for generating complex data-entry screens that work within any mainstream Web browser. This allows deploying both Internet and Intranet applications very quickly, without having to code "by hand". This exploits "thin client" technology to its current limits, requiring only a PC or NC and a Web browser at the "user" end. By incorporating lots of ActiveX controls within the RedBack applications, there are practically no limits on the complexities and capabilities of object-based applications. What this means is that it will be enormously easy to incorporate sounds, images, multi-media, and other intelligent objects like spreadsheets within web-based applications.

The keynote speaker, Dave Barry, a Pulitzer-prize winning humor columnist and called "the funniest man in America" by the New York Times, kept the audience in stitches with his humorous observations on the current state of computer technology. Among his gems were, and I more or less quote here, "I don't actually know what RAM is, but I know that I always need more."

Dave claims that he has been a DOS user since release 1.0, whose sole feature was to respond with "BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME" to anything one typed in at the "C:" prompt.

As to the Internet, Dave observed that he would not be accused of overstatement if he observed that it is wonderful, because it's where you can actually find "the most important video in the history of the universe".

He was, of course, referring to the "Exploding Whale Video", captured by a local TV news crew in Oregon a few years ago when the Oregon State Department of Highways was called in to dispose of a large, rotting whale carcass that had washed ashore.

The engineers, after much thought and perhaps a few beers, decided that they would use roughly a half-ton of dynamite to blow the very large chunk of whale into zillions of smaller chunks that would then be "eaten by the sea gulls".

Mere words do not adequately describe the scene of watching them detonate the whale to the delight of onlookers standing a quarter mile away, whose enthusiasm quickly changed to horror as condo-sized chunks of rotting whale blubber began to rain from the sky. One such piece completely caved in the roof of a car parked a quarter mile away. If you have the time and bandwidth, you can actually download this clip from http://moonbase.wwc.edu:8004/whale/.

Believe me, it's whale worth the trip.

And as soon as I regain my breath, I'm sure I'll feel that way about my latest trip to Colorado.

See you next issue.

Jon Sisk
www.jes.com

Original article for Computing News & Review, September, 1997

Copyright © 1997 Jonathan E. Sisk.