Re: [boost] CORBA iimplementation for Boost interest?

From: Jonathan Biggar (jon_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-04-03 19:33:53

Stefan Seefeld wrote:
> Jonathan Biggar wrote:
> 
>> So there appears to be some interest, and even more interest if it leads 
>> to developing a new more modern C++ binding for CORBA.  But having an 
>> implementation of the current binding would be a huge start for that.
> 
> I don't quite agree. In particular, I think the phrasing above is quite 
> a bit misleading: I wouldn't characterize an ORB as an 'implementation 
> of a C++ binding'. And I also don't agree that a new ORB implementation 
> is required as a prerequisite for a new C++ binding.
> 
> The reason I'm pointing this out is that I don't see any value in yet 
> another ORB. Lots of time has been spent on existing ones to get decent 
> performance, etc., and I think it's just naive and foolish to start all 
> over, just to be able to pretend that this one is built with boost. Yet 
> another case of Not-Invented-Here ?
> 
> Pick a good, free, ORB (the two choices that immediately come to mind 
> are omniORB and TAO), and try to make modifications so it can be used 
> with an alternate C++ binding. I think this would be a much more 
> reasonable plan to move forward.

Stefan, I'm not going to implement a new ORB, I already have one that 
has been under development for over 10 years, and it provides several 
CORBA features that are not implemented in omniORB or TAO, such as the 
polling asynchronous invocation model, a complete implementation of 
valuetypes, and more of the Messaging QoS policies.

And from my experience, much of an ORB implementation is pretty 
intricately tied into the C++ binding.  Redevelopment of a new binding 
will touch a very large part of the ORB source code anyway.

Having an ORB that uses the Boost Thread and ASIO libraries also means 
applications that use those boost libraries can easily use an ORB too 
without integration problems.

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