is it safe do adopt CORBA?

is it safe do adopt CORBA?

[marcelo.batera]

Hello there,

	I'm diving into the development of a generic framework for build
business applications in Ada. I know there are thousands of system
like that in other languages and I've actually worked with one of
these tools (OFBiz.org) for over one year and a half. But those
systems tend to be slow and performance is one of our highest
requirements.

	We are going to build a BI application with this framework for a big
company (and this application might become a complete ERP solution in
the future), so we need the system to be efficient. It's also going to
be a distributed application due to the internal organization of the
company's departments and their own IT systems.

  For this reason we are tending to go for CORBA but all the articles
I found on the web about it have made us worry about this decision.

  Some of those articles even say CORBA is dead and claims SOAP is a
better replacement, sometimes giving some techinical "advantages" of
SOAP over CORBA. Not only those supposed advantages seemed
questionable but they wouldn't be reason enough for us to run away
from this middleware. Also, we need efficiency (something SOAP doesn't
give us) and the possibility to interact with other languages (such as
Java) over the network (something annex e doesn't provide us) and even
the integration with the user's desktop (gnome uses intensively CORBA
in it's very core) is very tempting.

  But still there is this hype about CORBA being dead and that's
something that really worry us. What's your oppinion about this? Is
there other middleware that I haven't noticed we could use that's
better suited for this kind of application?

  I'm asking this in this list because our main language is going to
be Ada.

Re: is it safe do adopt CORBA?

[Georg Bauhaus]

On Fri, 2007-05-18 at 10:19 -0700, marcelo.batera@gmail.com wrote:


>   Some of those articles even say CORBA is dead and claims SOAP is a
> better replacement, sometimes giving some techinical "advantages" of
> SOAP over CORBA.

For sure, CORBA wasn't intended to be a quick and dirty CGI successor.
I think that SOAP is better in _this_ regard.

> Also, we need efficiency (something SOAP doesn't
> give us) and the possibility to interact with other languages (such as
> Java) over the network (something annex e doesn't provide us) and even
> the integration with the user's desktop (gnome uses intensively CORBA
> in it's very core) is very tempting.

Have you considered evaluating PolyORB?
https://libre.adacore.com/polyorb/

J2EE literature says that CORBA is too low level. OTOH, I understand
you want to make specialized business software?

Re: is it safe do adopt CORBA?

[marcelo.batera]

On May 18, 2:52 pm, Georg Bauhaus <bauh...@futureapps.de> wrote:

> For sure, CORBA wasn't intended to be a quick and dirty CGI successor.
> I think that SOAP is better in _this_ regard.

LMAO. I just love this list. (I know I'm not very much active in here
but I never got tired reading posts)

> > Also, we need efficiency (something SOAP doesn't
> > give us) and the possibility to interact with other languages (such as
> > Java) over the network (something annex e doesn't provide us) and even
> > the integration with the user's desktop (gnome uses intensively CORBA
> > in it's very core) is very tempting.

> Have you considered evaluating PolyORB?https://libre.adacore.com/polyorb/

Indeed. We're gonna use for sure PolyORB or ORBit-Ada.

> J2EE literature says that CORBA is too low level.

That's one of the reasons I don't like J2EE. Dealing with objects is
low level? But that deserves another topic.

> OTOH, I understand
> you want to make specialized business software?

Yes, but I think we might develop a generic framework first - just
like the ones easily found in the J* world but without the "create a
XML describing your interface, then a XML describing your service and
then a XML describing your database. Then you write the application
and hope it works in production environment" stuff.

Maybe it's gonna be just like JBoss used to be (a "software" that is
in fact several other software packed together in a somewhat organized
way).

I have some design ideas I'd love to share and discuss with everyone
on the list but they aren't mature enough for this yet.

Re: is it safe do adopt CORBA?

[marcelo.batera]

oh, btw. Sorry I misspelled the topic subject. :(

"safe to" instead of "safe do"

Re: is it safe do adopt CORBA?

[Jeffrey Creem]

marcelo.batera@gmail.com wrote:
> Hello there,
> 
> 	I'm diving into the development of a generic framework for build
> business applications in Ada. I know there are thousands of system
> like that in other languages and I've actually worked with one of
> these tools (OFBiz.org) for over one year and a half. But those
> systems tend to be slow and performance is one of our highest
> requirements.
> 
> 	We are going to build a BI application with this framework for a big
> company (and this application might become a complete ERP solution in
> the future), so we need the system to be efficient. It's also going to
> be a distributed application due to the internal organization of the
> company's departments and their own IT systems.
> 
>   For this reason we are tending to go for CORBA but all the articles
> I found on the web about it have made us worry about this decision.
> 
>   Some of those articles even say CORBA is dead and claims SOAP is a
> better replacement, sometimes giving some techinical "advantages" of
> SOAP over CORBA. Not only those supposed advantages seemed
> questionable but they wouldn't be reason enough for us to run away
> from this middleware. Also, we need efficiency (something SOAP doesn't
> give us) and the possibility to interact with other languages (such as
> Java) over the network (something annex e doesn't provide us) and even
> the integration with the user's desktop (gnome uses intensively CORBA
> in it's very core) is very tempting.
> 
>   But still there is this hype about CORBA being dead and that's
> something that really worry us. What's your oppinion about this? Is
> there other middleware that I haven't noticed we could use that's
> better suited for this kind of application?
> 
>   I'm asking this in this list because our main language is going to
> be Ada.
> 

The truth of course is that it is not safe to pick anything as anything 
you pick will be 'dead' by the time you finish..at least in some 
people's eyes. CORBA was 'dead' and slow by many measures not long after 
it came out but that has not stopped many people from being successful 
with it.

I don't really know that much about your application domain and how 
these distributed applications will interact but perhaps you should look 
at building something with WSDL (supported by AWS - (Ada Web server)).

In the end, you have to pick something generally solid, then believe it 
in it and go forward without worrying too much that you picked the 
'wrong' tool (unless it is just broken and does not meet your needs).


for fun try googling for
soap is dead
corba is dead
xml is dead
DCOM is dead
.NET is dead

and when you are done with the noun is dead game, try
noun considered harmful.


Ahh..the fun of the web an pundits...


Of course none of this takes away the fact that it is good to do the 
kind of initial research you are doing...

Re: is it safe do adopt CORBA?

[JPWoodruff]

On May 18, 11:19 am, "marcelo.bat...@gmail.com"
<marcelo.bat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello there,
>
>         I'm diving into the development of a generic framework for build
> business applications in Ada.

I'd like to tell you about the Integrated Computer Control System that
controls the National Ignition Facility laser at Lawrence Livermore
National Lab.  The laser, which is nearing completion, is used for
research on inertial confinement nuclear fusion.  This multi-billion
dollar facility will be used for several decades.

The control system software is written in Ada and Java, and is
distributed over some 600 computers using CORBA.  The ICCS team
developed a software framework of tools and patterns for building the
large number of FEPs and supervisory systems.  The system meets its
requirements.

There are several published accounts of the software system, including
my own papers in SigAda 1998 and 2002.  I worked on the ICCS software
framework from its inception until I retired 5 years ago.  More recent
reports have appeared in ICALEPCS conferences starting in 2001.

John Woodruff

Re: is it safe do adopt CORBA?

[marcelo.batera]

Googling for "[anything] is dead" was really fun and enlightening.

Thanks a lot for all your feedback. Now I'm more confidant about our
decisions.


--
Marcelo

Re: is it safe do adopt CORBA?

[Peter C. Chapin]

"marcelo.batera@gmail.com" <marcelo.batera@gmail.com> wrote in 
news:1179533985.333858.54420@n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:

> Googling for "[anything] is dead" was really fun and enlightening.
> 
> Thanks a lot for all your feedback. Now I'm more confidant about our
> decisions.

Although it doesn't support Ada (which is a significant problem in this 
context), I've had fun experimenting with the Ice middleware system 
(http://www.zeroc.com). Ice is easier and more modern than CORBA, and yet 
offers similar features. The Zeroc people also claim that it is far faster 
than SOAP. I haven't done any testing of this sort myself.

Peter

Re: is it safe do adopt CORBA?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 19 May 2007 23:26:02 GMT, Peter C. Chapin wrote:

> "marcelo.batera@gmail.com" <marcelo.batera@gmail.com> wrote in 
> news:1179533985.333858.54420@n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:
> 
>> Googling for "[anything] is dead" was really fun and enlightening.
>> 
>> Thanks a lot for all your feedback. Now I'm more confidant about our
>> decisions.
> 
> Although it doesn't support Ada (which is a significant problem in this 
> context), I've had fun experimenting with the Ice middleware system 
> (http://www.zeroc.com). Ice is easier and more modern than CORBA, and yet 
> offers similar features. The Zeroc people also claim that it is far faster 
> than SOAP. I haven't done any testing of this sort myself.

Then there exits on-going activities on middleware architectures for
process control and automation. Like RTE in AUTOSAR

http://www.autosar.org/

They want to go away from client-server architectures.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: is it safe do adopt CORBA?

[marcelo.batera]

On 19 maio, 20:26, "Peter C. Chapin" <pcha...@sover.net> wrote:
> Although it doesn't support Ada (which is a significant problem in this
> context), I've had fun experimenting with the Ice middleware system
> (http://www.zeroc.com). Ice is easier and more modern than CORBA, and yet
> offers similar features. The Zeroc people also claim that it is far faster
> than SOAP. I haven't done any testing of this sort myself.

ICE sounds cool. Maybe we could work on some sort of Ada support
(maybe a binding) as it's open source.

I'll look more deeply into it.

Re: is it safe do adopt CORBA?

[Adam Beneschan]

On May 20, 4:36 pm, "marcelo.bat...@gmail.com"
<marcelo.bat...@gmail.com> wrote:

> ICE sounds cool

Well, I would hope so.  If it weren't, they'd have to rename it
WATER ...

                       -- Adam