Notebook interfaces for networked scientific computing: design and WWW implementation

Abstract

Advances in wired and wireless networking technologies are making networked computing the most common form of high performance computing. Similarly, software like Mosaic and Netscape have not only unified the networked computing landscape, but they have made it available to the masses in a simple, machine independent way. These developments are changing the way we do computational science, learn, research, collaborate, access information and resources, and maintain local and global relations. We envision a scenario where large scale computational science and engineering applications like virtual classrooms and laboratories are ubiquitous, and information resources are accessible on-demand from anywhere. In this paper we present the design of a user interface that will be appropriate to this scenario. We argue that interfaces modeled on the pen and paper paradigm are suited in this context. Specifically, we present the software architecture of a notebook interface. We lay down the requirements for such an interface and present its implementation using the World Wide Web. A realization of the notebook model is presented for a problem solving environment (PDELab) to support the numerical simulation of PDE based applications on a network of heterogeneous high performance machines. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.