Coordinating distributed applets with Shade/Java

We introduce Shade/Java, a language for coordinating Java objects distributed over the Internet. Shade is based on a concept called the object space, that is used both as repository for objects and as coordination medium. The object space offers several services which can be exploited by Java objects. We describe the basic ideas in the language, its current implementation and programming environment, and an application in the field of electronic commerce. 1 Introduction The WWW has a great potential for supporting distributed multiuser applications, especially after the introduction of the Java language. However, Java is not a language for distributed programming: it needs at least the supplement of sockets libraries; the JavaRMI and Java-CORBA extensions [12] are packages for supporting client-server application architecture. A more high-level approach consists of using coordination technology for enhancing WWW middleware [9]. This has been recognized even by JavaSoft, which has anno..