Re: [boost] Re: RPC library

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-03-06 19:37:47

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 22:59:43 +0000 (UTC), Jarl Lindrud wrote
> Iain Hanson <Iain.Hanson <at> videonetworks.com> writes:
> >
> > > Your position seems to be that programmers should not be afforded the
option 
> of 
> > > choosing; they should just bite the bullet and always use CORBA. If they 
> don't 
> > > like that, then they should just avoid networking altogether.
> > 
> > Personally I tend to prefer not letting programmers shoot themselves in
> > the foot, if I can avoid it. Unfortunately, they ( and I sometimes ) are
> > incredibly  inventive at finding new ways to do so .
> > 
> 
> To sum up then, your position is that:
> 
> 1) CORBA is the be-all and end-all of distributed programming.
> 
> 2) Anything not projected to need CORBA-style scaleability is just a 
> "toy" and not worthy of library support.
> 
> I guess you don't find much need for networking at all in Boost? At 
> least not beyond lowlevel socket API wrappers and assorted utilites 
> that might be useful for something like realtime socket apps. 
> Anything beyond that can, and should, be done with CORBA, regardless 
> of scale and scope.

Sorry I haven't had time to follow this whole thread, but I've written a few
Corba and distributed programs over the years and I think there is a place for
varying support levels.  CORBA is way, way overkill for many simple
applications (retrieve a web page, register a product on a remote site, snap
some data from a server on startup, etc).  There is hardly anyway to make a
CORBA application light weight, it introduces the idl compiler, a whole set of
new types, typically threading, etc. Also, the CORBA binding to C++ is a pain
in my view -- someone could redo it with modern C++ and things would be much
better, but I don't see anyone talking about that.  But I digress.  And Ian,
you should be happy that people are messing up distributed apps -- means more
employment for those that know how to fix things ;-)

As for RPC, I can see Ian's point -- it's a slippery slope.  You can quickly
wind up reinventing the wheel yet again.  That said, I think it's a line that
can be walked, so I think you should keep going.  But this will undoubtedly
come up in the review, so you'll have to be really clear about the niche you
are filling.

Jeff

ps: I haven't had a chance to look at your library yet...