On Aug 29, 2:13 am, ap...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> On 24 Aug, 16:21, Mark Woyna <wo...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 22, 1:58 am, ap...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> > First, Orbix and OrbixWeb are 2 *different* products. The only thing
> > they share is the name.
>
> My suspicions are confirmed.
>
> > My experience matches yours. OrbixWeb was as buggy a piece of junk as
> > Orbix 3.X.
>
> Wel, that's not exactly my experience. OrbixWeb looks like it might be
> slightly better. I have had terrible trouble with the C++ Orbix giving
> problems with client-side callback invocation. It's hard to tell in
> these early days but it looks like OrbixWeb might not have these
> problems.
>
> > Given that it's an ancient product, and that there are far
> > better orbs out there, e.g. JacORB, I don't understand why you insist
> > on sticking with OrbixWeb.
>
> Believe it or not, I recommended that we do. This is because I have
> misgivings about moving to JacORB. This is despite me being an open
> source advocate. Indeed when I started the java work I used JacORB to
> begin with. Here are some of the reasons I gave against JacORB:
>
> o The binary distribution of jacORB does not work - you have
> to build from source.
I've never had to build JacORB, and I've been using it for years in my
courses. The 2 jar files are all you need (idl.jar, and jacorb.jar).
>
> o jacORB will not build with java 6. I have re****ted this to
> the mailing list. No response yet.
That shouldn't be a showstopper. If you really do need to build it, it
should be built using the appropriate version of the JDK.
>
> o The bug list is quite large (not huge, but not small either)
> and has some very old bugs going back to 2002.
Not unusual. Bugs that are 5 years old must not be that critical. :-)
>
> o My impression from taking to PrismTech is that their version
> has diverged a bit from the official one. They do have some
> fixes pending but their changes seem to get merged back quite
> infrequently. We would therefore be under some practical
> pressure
> to use the PrismTech version and would thus not benefit as
> much
> as you would have thought from jacORB being open source.
>
> o After speaking to PrismTech I think that jacORB is used quite
> heavily in industry but it is mainly things like the public
> sector, defence and telecoms. The Royal Bank of Scotland was
> using it several years back but I do not know if they still
> are
> and I do not know of any other banks that have looked at it.
>
> > There's no technical reason you can't move
> > to JacORB, a superior *free* orb with a fairly active developer
> > community.
>
> Actually there are at least two reasons: first it won't build with
> java6 (and it must be built from the source); second, I have a problem
> with the use of ****table interceptors and I have had insufficient
> response from the jacorb mailing list (and I tried USENET also). My
> experiences of IONA sup****t in the past have been bad but at the
> moment I am getting very good sup****t - one IONA consultant in
> particular is being extremely helpful and we do not even have a
> sup****t agreement!
You mean there's life at Iona? ;-)
>
> > I think you'll find that practically *nobody* uses OrbixWeb. 'Notice
> > how few responses you're getting to your questions? Granted, this
> > usenet group doesn't get the traffic it once did, but you'll be hard
> > pressed to find any recent discussion of OrbixWeb.
>
> I think you're right; what a pity. But how many people are using CORBA
> with java? Not many, I suspect. Certainly that seems to be the case
> with the investment banks in The City.
I know of a few, but I'd guess that most firms using CORBA are using C+
+, as the 2 basically grew up together. When Java went mainstream,
most adopters appeared to have gone down the RMI path, with no regard
for interoperability with other languages. (RMI over IIOP was a
kludge, and fundamentally broker the CORBA architecture. But that's a
different topic).
>
> > IMHO, OrbixWeb was
> > slapped together by Iona at the beginning of the Java craze
> > Iona wasn't investing
> > much in its core CORBA products.
>
> Well, it is old technology for IONA, I know. Other ORBS like jacorb,
> TAO. etc are under active development. But this does not matter to me
> too much because the CORBA will be phased out on this project anyway.
Replaced with what? For all its warts, there's still no practical
alternative to CORBA if you need multi-language, multi-platform
interoperability, especially if you need performance. XML/RPC just
doesn't cut it if you need high message rates. For most applications,
it's probably sufficient.
> I am just trying to replace the C++ with java right now. So I do not
> need a sparkling product, just one that works reasonably well with
> some sup****t in case we hit a showstopper.
I imagine PT's version of JacORB would suffice.
>
> > Through Orbix 3.x, Iona's products were generally crap.
>
> I too have been disappointed in Orbix as it has evolved over the
> years. But all the ORBs I have looked at have had different problems
> and their fair share of bugs. I think Orbix has played leapfrog with
> these other ORBs (getting better then the other ORBs overtake it then
> Orbix overtakes them etc etc). If you think Orbix 3 is bad you should
> have seen Orbix 2!
Are you kidding? I starting using Orbix with version 1.x. I'm
painfully aware of the history of the product. :-)
> I used to use MICO in preference. But I would now
> choose Orbix 3 instead of MICO (mainly because MICO still does not
> have multi-threading sup****t). So I think that comment is a little
> harsh.
Tao would be my recommendation for a C++ orb.
>
> > I swear that
> > their patch numbers read like pi.
>
> I laughed out loud when I read that!
>
> > it got so bad that we eventually dropped Orbix and wrote our own orb.
> > How bad do you think it has to get for someone to consider writing
> > their own middleware?
>
> Good grief, that's extreme! Why didn't you use JacORB? It has been
> around for quite a while.
It didn't exist. We started writing the orb in 1998. I've been using
CORBA since 1993, I believe. God, has it been that long? :-)
>
> > Now, I'll admit that I get a chance to check out Orbix 2000, which I
> > understand was a complete rewrite from the ground up of Orbix, led by
> > Steve Vinoski. From what I've heard it wasn't half bad, but by that
> > time the CORBA market was at a standstill.
>
> I am considering using Orbix 6 if OrbixWeb proves to be too buggy. The
> alternative would be the PrismTech version of JacORB.
Have you checked out VisiBroker? I believe it's still available,
although it's buried on Borland's website.
Mark
>
> > > Regards,
>
> > > Andrew Marlow
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