Architecture Decisions:

Front-End: we discussed using either straight HTML or an Applet.
After discussing this with Dave Parter, we have decided to focus
on straight HTML as our primary front-end. We have to keep our
HTML in line with the University mandated accessibility guidelines.

Middle-Tier: we discussed using a stand-alone Java application and
using a Java servlet. Since our mentors require a web front-end,
we prefer to leverage the work already done by the Tomcat project
to use Servlets through the Apache web server.

Back-End: we discussed using a custom text file, Java serialization,
and a stand-alone relational database. We chose to use the relational
database because CSL has a database server already in service that
we can get a database on. This reduces the burden of coding on us
(to an extent) while allowing us to use industry standard SQL.
Using a standard database also allows us to migrate to a different
system with less pain than other choices.

So, our hardware choice is:
1. Server x86 machine running RedHat Linux (as supported by CSL)
2. Client x86 machine running either Windows 2000 or RedHat Linux
(our initial focus will be to support the machines supported by CSL)

Our software choices are:
1. Server Apache Web server;
2. Tomcat (or Apache JServ) servlet engine;
3. PostgreSQL database;
4. Client Netscape Communicator 4.76 or higher;
(we will attempt to use standard HTML, but will test primarily against Netscape).