4.1.3 Client

A Vision for Open Hypermedia Systems

Nürnberg and Leggett

4.1.3 Client

A client in our architecture should be interpreted as the entity that interacts with Sprocs. Although it is tempting to draw an analogy between this client entity and viewers in the OHRA proposal or content handlers in the Grønbæk and Wiil proposal, this is not entirely correct. Although in many instances, viewers or content-handlers may interact directly with Sprocs, one can also imagine various other programs such as session managers, shims, wrappers, tool integrators, etc. interacting with Sprocs on behalf of viewers or content handlers. From the point of view of the Sprocs, this distinction is irrelevant. We feel it is most appropriate not to distinguish these cases from one another. Whether in such cases the proxy alone is considered the client, or some conceptual "collapsing" of the proxy and the "end-client" are so considered, is a question that also seems unimportant for the task of this particular group.

Client entity analogs in various OHS's and the reference architecture were cited above. In addition, the automatic indexer described in one of the scenarios abstracted above would also be considered a client entity.