[mercury-users] Mercury in the Mainstream: CORBA vs COM/DCOM

[Tyson Dowd]

On 11-Sep-1998, Peter J. Natali <pjnatali at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Tyson Dowd wrote:
> > 
> > As a side note, we are working on (what we believe) is a good way
> > for Mercury to gain some mainstream usage -- a CORBA binding for
> > Mercury.  This would allow using Mercury to write components,
> > and so be adopted piecemeal, in an experimental fashion, rather
> > than demanding the whole job be done in Mercury (such as the
> > "but can you write an OS" approach).
> 
>   What about support for COM/DCOM first? There's a huge market there. 

Licenses cost money.
NT Workstations cost money (much more than a Linux box and a few
terminals).

>   How about a quick poll of the Mercury user base on the question of
> CORBA vs. COM/DCOM support?

I am happy to hear what people want to use.  A great deal
of work that goes into supporting CORBA bindings is quite relevant
to a COM/DCOM binding.

It may not be necessary, however, as it seems Microsoft has decided
to allow (support?) COM and CORBA interoperability anyway.  See
http://www.omg.org/news/glea.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1998/Jun98/msintrPR.htm

It seems a number of vendors have COM/CORBA bridges available or under
development, and are teaching COM to speak IIOP so it can communicate
directly with ORBs.  

So "COM or CORBA" might not be an exclusive or proposition.

-- 
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.     - Benjamin Franklin

Tyson Dowd   <tyson at tyse.net>   http://tyse.net