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<A href="../"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="../Icons/WWW/w3c_home" ALT="W3C" WIDTH="72"
    HEIGHT="48"></A> | <A href="../Architecture">Architecture Domain</A>
<H1>
  Object Technology and the Web
</H1>
<P>
This is an investigation of the integration of distributed object technologies
with the web, and the duality between application programmer interfaces (APIs)
and network protocols.
<P>
<STRONG>This investigation recently (July 97) culminated in the lauch of
a new W3C Architecture Domain Activity:
<A HREF="../Protocols/HTTP-NG/Activity.html">HTTP-NG - The Next
Generation</A>.</STRONG>
<UL>
  <LI>
    <A HREF="Overview.html#time">Timeline</A>: News, Events and Publications
  <LI>
    <A HREF="Overview.html#Introduction">Introduction</A>
  <LI>
    <A HREF="./HyperMediaDev.html">Issues in the Development of Distributed
    Hypermedia Applications</A>
    <UL>
      <LI>
	<A href="../MobileCode">Mobile Code</A> Java, Safe-Tcl, Logicware, Omniware,
	<A href="../MobileCode/WorkShop9507">Jul 95 WorkShop</A>
    </UL>
  <LI>
    <A href="./interfaces">Hypermedia APIs/Protocols</A>
    <UL>
      <LI>
	<A HREF="../DesignIssues/DistObjApps.html">The Web Object Model and Type
	System</A>
      <LI>
	<A HREF="./HypermediaTech.html">Technologies for Development of Distributed
	Applications</A>
    </UL>
  <LI>
    <A href="#schools">Schools of Thought</A>
</UL>
<H2>
  <A NAME="time">News/Events/History</A>
</H2>
<UL>
  <LI>
    <STRONG>July 97</STRONG>: W3C Activity:
    <A HREF="../Protocols/HTTP-NG/Activity.html">HTTP-NG - The Next Generation</A>
  <LI>
    <STRONG>Nov 96</STRONG>: W3C Technical Symposium: <A href="./96-symposium">A
    Comparison of DCOM and CORBA</A>
  <LI>
    <STRONG>Jun 96</STRONG>: Joint W3C/OMG Workshop:
    <A href="./9606_Workshop">Distributed Objects and Mobile Code</A>
  <LI>
    <STRONG>Mar 96</STRONG>: W3C Note: <A href="../TR/WD-ilu-requestor">The ILU
    Requester: Object Services in HTTP Servers</A>
  <LI>
    <STRONG>Dec 95</STRONG>: Panel at WWW4:
    <A HREF="../../Conferences/WWW4/Panels/obj3.html">The Future of Object Technology
    in the WWW</A>
  <LI>
    <STRONG>Jul 95</STRONG>: W3C Workshop:
    <A href="../MobileCode/Workshop9507">Mobile Code</A>
  <LI>
    from the www-talk archives: re:
    <A name=oop-archives href="http://www.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q&amp;what=web&amp;fmt=&amp;q=url%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.eit.com%2Fgoodies%2Flists+%22distributed+objects%22+agents+%22mobile+code%22+java+python+Safe-Tcl">objects,
    agents, and mobile code</A>
  <LI>
    <A href="../Bugs/Objects.html">TimBL's original note on WWW/OOP</A>
</UL>
<H2>
  <A NAME="Introduction">Introduction</A>
</H2>
<P>
The power of the Web as a new medium derives not only from its ability to
allow people to communicate across vast distances and different times, but
also from the ability of machines to help people communicate and manage
information. The Web is a complex distributed system, and Object Technology
has been an important part of managing the complexity of the Web from its
creation.
<P>
Object Technology continues to influence and impact the web in a number of
areas:
<DL>
  <DT>
    Scripting
  <DD>
    Client side scripting has been an interesting area of research and
    experimentation since the <A HREF="#oop-archives">early days of the web</A>,
    but now it being deployed, and information providers need interoperable support.
    See also: <A HREF="../MarkUp/DOM/Overview.html">Document Object Model</A>
    and <A HREF="../MarkUp/Cougar/">HTML with scripting markup</A>.
  <DT>
    Embedded Multimedia Components
  <DD>
    The web is a natural medium for component software technology such as Plug-Ins,
    Java applets, ActiveX controls, OpenDoc parts. See also:
    <A href="../TR/WD-object">Inserting Objects into HTML</A>.
  <DT>
    Web Server Components
  <DD>
    CGI, along with HTML and forms, is an important part of the platform of
    technologies used to deploy application services on the web. But its design
    presents a performance limitation in many situations. A
    <A HREF="../CGI/#cgi-ng">number of mechanisms for interfacing applications</A>
    to web servers, from C-callable APIs to network protocols to distributed
    objects gateways have sprung up to fill the need. Check out
    <A HREF="../Jigsaw/">Jigsaw</A> and its servlet support.
  <DT>
    Agents and <A HREF="../MobileCode/">Mobile Code</A>
  <DD>
    Mobile code can be used to automate information access: searching, brokering,
    and even manipulating data with mobile agents is an interesting trend.
</DL>
<H2>
  <A ID=schools>Schools of Thought</A>
</H2>
<P>
The various players in the distributed objects are separated into camps based
on architectural interoperability, and listed in chronological order (roughly).
<DL>
  <DT>
    <A href="http://www.osf.org/dce">DCE</A>
  <DD>
    <A href="http://www.osf.org">OSF</A> is the controlling body. The distributed
    object model inherits from something called TI-RPC, which is C++ish. The
    RPC system came from Apollo, I think.
  <DT>
    <A NAME="CORBA">CORBA</A>
  <DD>
    Common Object Request Broker Architecture.
    from <A name="omg" href="http://www.omg.org">OMG</A>, The Object Management Group. Related/derived work:
<ul>
<li>
    <A name=ilu href="HypermediaTech#ILU">ILU</a>
<p>
    Inter-Language Unification. This project from Xerox PARC explores
implementation and architectural issues around CORBA.
<li><a href="http://www.omg.org/library/schedule/ORBOS_RFP3.htm">Java-idl</a>
<li>OpenDoc, from <a href="http://www.cilabs.org">CI labs</a>
      <LI>
	<A href="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/maffeis/electra.html" title="The Electra Object Request Broker">The
	Electra Object Request Broker</A>
      <DT>
	<A href="http://www.austin.ibm.com/developer/objects/som1.html">SOM/DSOM</A>
    </DL>
  <DT>
    <A NAME="DCOM" HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/inttech/comintro.htm">COM</A>
  <DD>
    Microsoft's Component Object Model -- the underpinnings of ActiveX, DCOM,
    and OLE.
    <UL>
      <LI>
	Internet draft:
	<A href="http://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-brown-dcom-v1-spec-00.txt">DCOM
	wire format</A>
    </UL>
  <DT>
    <A HREF="http://plan9.att.com/">Plan 9</A>
  <DD>
    This is the basis of <A HREF="../MobileCode/#inferno">Inferno</A>. The Bell
    labs guys started over with the "everything is a file" concept. 9P is a really
    nifty protocol. Supports <A HREF="interfaces/#union-link">union links</A>.
</DL>
<H2>
  Research Notebook: Misc.
</H2>
<P>
These resources have been bookmarked for further study.
<UL>
  <LI>
    <A href="http://www.acl.lanl.gov/CORBA">LANL CORBA page</A>
  <LI>
    <A href="http://www.interlog.com/~resnick/ron4.html">Ron Resnick's Distributed
    Objects Page</A>
  <LI>
    <A href="http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Phd/Krishna/IWHD.html" title="Distributed Applications in a Hypermedia Setting">Distributed
    Applications in a Hypermedia Setting</A>
  <LI>
    <A href="http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~burchard/www/interactive/embed.html"
	title="Embedded Objects and Client-Side State">Embedded Objects and Client-Side
    State</A>
  <LI>
    <A href="http://www.glyphic.com/glyphic/papers/safehelperapps/title.html"
	title="Safe Helper Applications">Safe Helper Applications</A>
  <LI>
    <A href="http://g.oswego.edu/dl/pats/aopintro.html" title="Programming
Active Objects in Java">Programming Active Objects in Java</A>
  <LI>
    <A href="http://www.geom.umn.edu/hypernews/get/interactive/index.html" title="Standards for an Interactive Web">Standards
    for an Interactive Web</A>
  <LI>
    <A href="http://www.iconcomp.com/papers">OMG, OOA/D, and IDL</A>
</UL>
<ADDRESS>
  <A href="../People/Connolly">Dan Connolly</A><BR>
  $Date: 1997/10/02 14:06:57 $
</ADDRESS>

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