19. World Wide Web and Object Technology
19.4. Putting it all together
In this section we will try to condense the material covered in the
previous sections into a comprehensive whole. We will see how
various technologies can be integrated to complement each other in
functionality and to provide a better environment for developing Web-based,
distributed client-server applications. We will also look at the current
developments taking place in this wide field and what their impact can be
on the WWW. Finally, we will try to visualize what the Web might look
like in the future and how it can change the desktop metaphor.
19.4.1. Integration of technologies
The best way to understand how the two technologies can be integrated is
to look at some possible application scenarios.
- Database access and charting: You have an application that can
access a remote database on the WWW and show you different views of the
database. It also contains a component that can take the data obtained
from the database and chart it for you in the format you want. All this
is controlled by incorporating GUI elements like buttons and list in the
application. E.g. the click of a button may activate the database viewer
component to send a request to the remote database, get the most recent
set of data, and simultaneously instruct the charting component to
update the chart on screen.
- Real estate agent: You create a software agent and
send it out on the network to query real estate information
servers and find out the lowest price of a piece of real estate in a
particular area. The agent moves from server to server and after
collecting the information it wants, returns to the home server.
It then passes the information it collected to a display component that
summarizes the results and presents them to you in a comprehensible
manner.
- Distributed spell checkers: Consider a word-processing plug-in in
your browser that uses distributed spell checkers and thesauruses on
the WWW. You don't have to store the huge dictionaries on your machine
and you can also spell check multiple languages. All your spell checker
need to know is the location of the desired language dictionary on the
WWW.
19.4.2. Current implementations and developments
Let take a look at some of the existing products and major development
taking place in the field of distributed objects for the Web. The links point
to the Web sites for the respective products.
-
Java Development Kit 1.1:
JDK 1.1 is the next major release of the Java Development Kit from
JavaSoft slated for release in the first quarter of 1997. It consists
of a lot of new APIs for developing commercial corporate applications.
Some of the most important new features of this release are the Java Beans
API, JDBC API, Java Security API, the Java Electronic Commerce Framework,
enhancements to the AWT, and APIs for remote connectivity.
- Microsoft ActiveX
and Visual J++:
ActiveX is a set of technologies from Microsoft that enable interactive
content for the WWW. ActiveX controls are the interactive objects in a
Web page that provide interactive and user-controllable functions.
ActiveX documents enable users to view non-HTML documents, such as
MS-Excel or Word files through a web browser.
Visual J++ is a integrated development environment for building Java
applications. It includes a visual debugger, an applet wizard, support
for ActiveX controls, a class viewer and a Just-in-time (JIT) compiler.
It also contains a very powerful debugging tool that lets you view
the internals of an object.
-
IBM's Arabica:
Arabica is IBM's solution to supporting Java applets in an OpenDoc
environment. Arabica components will be delivered as a set of Java Beans.
Arabica is a rapid assembly tool for developing platform independent
applications for the corporate world.
- Apple's Cyberdog:
Cyberdog is Apple's new approach to the World Wide Web using OpenDoc
technology. It provides you with the ability to browse the WWW, read and
write email, follow newsgroups, use ftp, telnet, and gophers, and even
view text, movies, sounds, pictures, and quicktime VR files on the WWW.
All of these services are included without the need for any helper
applications.
-
Netscape LiveConnect: LiveConnect is a set of Software Development
Kits offered by Netscape of developing plug-ins for the Netscape
Navigator. It also offers facilities for integrating plug-ins with Java
applets and JavaScript. This allows plug-ins to be controlled by Java
applets, and also by JavaScript routines contained in the HTML page.
- Iona's Orbix:
Orbix is a complete implementation of CORBA for developing distributed
object-oriented client/server applications. Orbix provides C++, Ada95,
and Java language bindings for CORBA and is supported on more that 10
Unix platforms, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, OS/2, Mac, VMS, and some others.
The first version of Orbix was released in June 1993.
- IBM Aglets Work bench:
Aglets are active agents programmed in Java using the Java RMI API.
Aglets are objects that can move from host to host and return to their
original host after collecting some useful information or doing some
useful work. The Aglets Work bench is a visual environment for building
network-based applications that use agents to search for, access, and
manage corporate data and other information.
-
Spyglass's Enhanced Mosaic Toolkit:
The Enhanced Mosaic Kit is similar in concept to Apple's Cyberdog.
Spyglass licenses Enhanced Mosaic to software developers; it is the
core of several commercial Internet clients, including Microsoft's
Internet Explorer and Oracle's Power Browser. It is available for the
Windows platform, Mac and UNIX, as well as operating systems, such as
those used in PDAs and smart phones.
19.4.3. Future architectures
There is a lot more to the World Wide Web than just surfing through
hypertext information. It has the capability to transform the way in which we
carry out our computing tasks as well as our daily business. Let's look at some
scenarios that can become possible in future if the WWW and Object technology
successfully merge together.
- The Web will be an electronic market of planetary proportions. There
will be boutiques, departmental stores, bookstores, banks, and travel
agencies on the Web. Electronic currency and round the clock shopping
will become a common thing.
- Electronic agents will be roaming around the networks looking for
bargains, and conducting negotiations with other agents. There will be
sniffer agents which will collect information and statistics, and do
system management.
- Massive amounts of multimedia data will be stored in digital libraries,
and will be moved and stored on the network. People will be able to
watch movies on the web and pay-per-view will become common for
material on the web.
- The desktop metaphor will have changed entirely to subsume the
facilities provided by the WWW. Microsoft has already announced its
intentions of making the Internet Explorer 4.0 as the user interface
for the Windows platform.
All these might seem to be wishful thinking at present, but if Web
technology moves at the same pace at it is now, creating the above scenarios
will not take much time.
Copyright © 1996 Ashish B. Shah, All Rights Reserved.
Ashish B. Shah
<ashish@csgrad.cs.vt.edu>
Last modified: Tue Oct 29 11:59:59 1996