Chimera: Hypermedia for heterogeneous software development environments

Emerging software development environments are characterized by heterogenei ty: they are composed of diverse object stores, user interfaces, and tools. This paper presents an approach for providing hypermedia services in this heterogeneous setting. Central notions of the approach include the followin g: anchors are established with respect to interactive views of objects, ra ther than the objects themselves; composable, n-ary links can be establishe d between anchors on different views of objects which may be stored in dist inct object bases; viewers may be implemented in different programming lang uages; and, hypermedia services are provided to multiple, concurrently acti ve, viewers. The paper describes the approach, supporting architecture, and lessons learned. Related work in the areas of supporting heterogeneity and hypermedia data modeling is discussed. The system has been employed in a v ariety of contexts including research, development, and education.