Re: [boost] CORBA iimplementation for Boost interest?

From: Jonathan Biggar (jon_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-04-01 23:38:57

Jonathan Franklin wrote:
>> Well, you can feel that way, but that rather chops my proposal out
>> entirely.
> 
> Doesn't have to be CORBA.  Just OO middleware that's "inspired" by CORBA.

You're talking about a couple of orders of magnitude more work to get 
something going, compared to the pretty much complete implementation I'm 
offering.

>> I think you're giving CORBA a bad rap.
> 
> This is of course my personal opinion, but I think it deserves the rap that
> it gets.  People stopped using it because it was too complicated (too hard
> to find good CORBA developers) and clunky.

People need to recognize that developing good transparent OO invocation 
middleware is far from trivial.  It's a complex problem, and complex 
problems need relatively complex solutions.

Sure, there's appeal to the idea of starting over to get it "right", but 
how much better will it really be and how long will it take, and will 
you get the feedback from the people who have been there and done that?

>>  Yes there are klunky parts of
>> the standard (contexts, anyone?), but if you ignore them and redesign
>> the C++ binding, what's left is quite workable.
> 
> I'd redo even the NamingService spec.

Again, you can point to klunky parts.  I can also explain the history of 
why it got that way, and I'd bet you'd find the rationale understandable.

Many things, like the NameService spec, can be wrapped in a utility 
class that makes it quite easy to use and avoids the klunkiness.

>> And I think the chances of standardizing a CORBA replacement that is
>> multi-language and multi-platform is pretty much nil.
> 
> 
> I've never tried to push anything through a standardization process, and
> have no idea how difficult this is.  Of course, do you really need to
> standardize an OO middleware product that kicks enough butt to become a de
> facto standard?

No, but don't trivialize how long it takes to get to butt-kicking stage. :)

> My gut feeling is that changing CORBA in any but superficial ways will be
> impossible.  Then you're stuck w/ Jonathan's ORB.  Maybe that's not a Bad
> Thing (TM).
> 
> Incidentally, have you looked at ICE?

Yes.  In fact I know one of the developers quite well.

-- 
Jon Biggar
Floorboard Software
jon_at_[hidden]
jon_at_[hidden]