WHERE IS SOFTWARE HEADED - A VIRTUAL ROUND-TABLE

To find out where software is headed, we took to the Internet, asking experts in academia and industry to share their vision as to the futur e of software. For this ''virtual'' roundtable, we've assembled a sele ction of responses, on topics ranging from object technology, networke d computing, software engineering, parallel computing, and software de sign in the undergraduate curriculum. If the topics are varied, these experts' views on the future of software are not. We were struck by th e polarization within the software community as a whole. Software is i n the midst of a revolution or a crisis; software professionals seem w ildly optimistic or extremely pessimistic. To people in industry, soft ware is racing toward a bright future made possible by object-oriented technology and client-server computing. To academics, things are movi ng too slowly and in the wrong direction-incremental changes are being made to an installed base that is itself inherently flawed. Whether y ou're in academia or industry, you'll find these brief descriptions in teresting and thought provoking.