An OO database migrates to the Web

The authors faced the dual challenge of first converting a relational database to the OO paradigm, then migrating it to the Web. They describe the procedures and technologies they used. The basic architecture of the resulting system is presented. The project goal was to create a Java based mapping client that would provide display and query capabilities for a set of geographic objects (features) that would be retrieved from the Smalltalk mapping prototype acting as a server. We planned to base communication on the Corba specification. We also planned to keep the remote fetching of objects completely transparent to the end user, who would be able to manipulate the features as if they were local.