Development of a Graphical User Interface on an X Window Platform for Hotel Software
Abstract
For my Senior Individualized Project I chose to do developmental work at
Nixdorf Microprocessor Engineering GmbH, a subsidiary of the large German
hard- and software-manufacturer Nixdorf Computer. My internship lasted about
two months, from the middle of October until Christmas, 1989. During that time
I worked for the "ASW Hotel/Catering" section on the project "Development of
New Hotel Software under UNIX", which emphasizes integrating X Window
based graphical user interfaces, fourth generation database languages, and object
oriented programming ( C + +) into an user and maintenance friendly approach
for mainframes in a way presently only known to some microcomputers.
It was my goal to learn as much as possible about the hard- and software
components involved, and to gain "hands-on" experience with the computer
systems which are usually beyond my reach. But at the same time I tried to give
a hundred percent in realizing the section of the project for which I was
responsible.
What made this job so exciting was the combination of tasks which went far
beyond the actual design and coding of the software itself. A major part of the
time was spent on exploring the capabilities of the relevant graphical and
networking development tools, which were just appearing on the market at that
time. Most of the software was just released or was supplied as beta-and pre2
release versions, and in many instances a significant amount of research was
required to adapt it to our needs.
Through my general knowledge in computer science and object oriented systems
gained in coursework at Kalamazoo College, on the one hand, and through
experience with UNIX based systems gained during my Career Development, on
the other hand, I was able to function as an integral member of the small team
entrusted with the project. In the following I will try to reflect my involvement in
the project and to give insights into the underlying concepts.