Use of Relational Storage and a Semantic Model to Generate Objects: The PENGUIN Project

Introduction Relational technology provides a basis for reliable sharing of large bodies of information. Object approaches provide conceptual locality of information to focus users attention. Application systems, similarily, tend to be effective if the data space is well focused and constrained. Future decision-support systems will require the combined use of database and intelligent applications. 2. The PENGUIN project In the penguin project, we demonstrate the hypothesis that relational storage, used to support an object-oriented approach can serve as a unifying framework for developing systems which share information [Wied:86]. Objects offer a consistent framework for users and their applications. Permanently storing information in the form of complex objects, however, can seriously inhibit sharing and flexibility, since an object presents one particular view of the world. A desirable compromise is to exploit existing database technology by d