Com and CORBA Side by Side: Architectures, Strategies, and Implementations

By Jason Pritchard

The COM and CORBA technologies are often pitted against each other, viewed simply as competing architectures for creating distributed solutions. While the most significant difference between COM and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201379457
• ISBN13: 9780201379457
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.2" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

The most important IT book of the decade

This book is quite thin, and yet it includes so much. The open mind towards competing technologies is important, we should all look at facts in an objective way. The book gives an excellent view on COM, CORBA and the differences between them. It also shows programming examples (not in depth) and explains things like "push" technologies very good. I would expect the first book in this subject (side-by-side approach) written by a technician, to be too detailed, with a poor language and not very educational. I was very wrong. An amazing book!

Excellent guide for system architects and project managers!

If you're in the process of architecting a new system or planning to rearchitect an existing system, this book will prove invaluable in helping you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Even if you're just interested in both technologies and want to dig deeper into each, this book is a sure bet!

A great book to keep for distributed computing

This is an amazing book which covers such a diverse field in distributed computing. This field is often confusing and sometimes even intimidating with many emerging technologies involving many programming languages and different platforms. Dr. Pritchard did an excellent job to bring much needed clarity in his book.The book has a very good organization and it is very easy to follow. It starts with a brief discussion on the history and background of distributed objects with some fundamental concepts. It then presents a comprehensive and objective comparison of COM and COBRA on both server and client sides. The book is completed with the presentation of bridging techniques between COM and COBRA, enabling the two to interoperate and coexist in an enterprise system. Dr. Prichard apparently has applied both COM and COBRA in practical projects, and therefore he is able to share his past experiences in using these technologies. He offers many technical insights in the planning and assessment, design and architecture, as well as implementation details with code examples in C++, Java and VB. I enjoyed reading his strategy discussions the most. There are too many books on the market which are filled with codes and technical details. This is a rare book which puts an equal emphasis on planning and design strategies. This book covers a variety of topics such as: MTS, MSMQ, ADO, ASP, OTS, JavaBeans and Enterprise JavaBeans, just mentioning a few. Dr. Pritchard presents these topics in a concise yet clear fashion. I am truly amazed that he could present all these topics with such a clarity, illustrating his deep understanding on the subject. It is certainly a book to keep for anyone who is working on or planning an enterprise distributed object system with either COM or COBRA.

The Definite COM & CORBA Guide

Not only did "COM & CORBA Side by Side" did an excellent job of comparing COM & CORBA, it laid out a number of strategies to apply *both* technologies' strengths in designing and implementing your distributed system solutions. As Part 1 of the book is aptly titled, the book's overriding theme is embracing COM & CORBA to your advantage. Evolutionary background and current technology trends in distributed computing were covered thoroughly. Development issues on both client & server sides were given enough treatment to satisfy 2 groups of audience: developers who want to understand the implementation details & differences of COM & CORBA, and decision makers who need strategic information on the technology's main players and future directions.However, the key to the entire book is Part 4 that covers COM & CORBA bridging strategies ranging from custom approaches (C++, JVM) to third-party commercial products (Visual Edge's ObjectBridge) to enterprise application servers that provide support for client & server components implemented with both COM & CORBA. This is probably the only COM & CORBA book currently available that provides comprehensive information on this topic. My only complaint is that only one commercial bridging product was covered in this section. I wish the author had spent more time on other third-party bridging solutions. Well, maybe that can be covered in a second edition.The book is also logically laid out with executive summary before and after each chapter and major section. What I also like about the book's presentation is the example code are higlighted with light gray background, making it easy to distinguish between text & programming details. In all, it is refreshing to come across a book that promotes building solutions by harnessing the strengths of competing technologies and does a very good job at that with real code & examples.

A great practical guide to distributed object technologies.

After reading most of this book it is clear that the author has significant practical experience developing solutions with both COM and CORBA technologies. This is a pleasant change from the theoretical emphasis in the several books on each of these subjects. It seems many of these are by professional writers, trainers or technology evangelists, and others are sponsored by technology development organizations.I like the very clear way that Dr. Pritchard imparts real world insights into engineering with both COM and CORBA. The comparisons of different aspects of the technologies are well presented in a (for once) unbiased manner. The code examples, which are in VB, Java and C++, are well thought out and clearly illustrate the issues under discussion. Also the organization of the book into client, server, and bridging sections adds to its overall readability.This is not an entry-level developer textbook, but for those familiar with one or both technologies it is great for understanding the relative benefits of each technology. It has lots of tips and helpful insights, and addresses some issues that hadn't occurred to me before.