Abstract

This report outlines the design, implementation, and deployment of a plotting tool based on client/server distributed computing model. The tool plots mathematical functions for a remote user over Internet. It provides a complete and friendly graphical user interface and can be loaded into a conventional Web browser. The tool is simple, cheap, easy to learn and easy to use. It is also reliable, portable and extensible. The tool is designed and implemented based on the component programming model, and integrates many cutting edge technologies, including Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI), Java Native Interface (JNI), Java Foundation Class (JFC), and Java Plug-in. Overviews of these technologies are given. For some of them, the alternative technologies are also discussed, and the reasoning for selecting a particular technology is presented. In addition, this report demonstrates the steps to reuse a legacy module written in C++ in the plotting tool developed in Java. The benefits of reusing this module are discussed.