Summary form only given, as follows. In the future, people will collaborate in real time and share virtual reality environments. In addition, very large databases will be monitored by knowbots with sufficient intelligence to present meaningful information as moving objects in an interactive environment. The high performance computing and communications initiative (HPCC) was started to support research that will lead to dramatic improvements for the future computing environment. The National Science Foundation (NSF) supports a number of science and technology centers and manages two large-scale networking programs.>

Different programming projects require different environments, but handcrafting a separate environment for each project is not economically feasible. Gandalf solves this problem by permitting environment designers to generate families of software development environments semiautomatically without excessive cost. Environments generated using Gandalf address programming environments, which help ease the programming process, as well as system development environments, which reduce the degree to which a software project is dependent on the good will of its members. Gandalf environments integrate programming and system development, permitting interactions not available in traditional environments. The paper covers the basic characteristics of Gandalf environments. The method used to generate these environments, the structure and function of several existing environments, and ongoing research on the project.

This paper appears in the March, 1972, issue of the Communications of the ACM. Its abstract is reproduced below.