(With apology for the cross-post to FoRK. Rohit once suggested we
subscribe FoRK *to* the dist-obj list, but I think that would create all
sorts of dangerous stream-crossing problems... :)
> > Does HTTP not have any redeeming features?
> Oh, sure. It has you/Rohit behind it :-).
<girthjoke>
Rohit's a lot of person to be behind ANYTHING. :)
</girthjoke>
> Seriously, though, as I've noted to you before, I have nothing more
> against http than I do against IIOP, RMI's wire transport, or pretty
> much any other TCP based point-to-point. You guys (karmakids on http,
> Waldo/Arnold on RMI, OMG/Orfali on IIOP) all get so defensive when we
> take your babies to task (actually, Adam, you've got the best sense of
> humour of these).
Because HTTP isn't really my baby. The application layer above it is *my*
baby.... I'm also fond of distributed transactions, archiving,
authentication, and replay, truth be known...
> How to make it clear that we're not singling any one of you
> out for scorn - we hate the lot :-)!
:) But we have a wildcard there, Ron! You're missing the INFOSPHERES
INFRASTRUCTURE protocol. Poke around some of the papers and tell me
what you think. Better yet, tell the list what you think...
http://www.infospheres.caltech.edu/papers/
Specifically,
http://www.infospheres.caltech.edu/papers/framework/
and
http://www.infospheres.caltech.edu/papers/sessions/
and even possibly
http://www.infospheres.caltech.edu/papers/archive/
> Personally, I'd like to start from scratch with a composable framework
> for protocol construction (something along the lines of iBus),
Actually, something along the lines of INFOSPHERES. No offense to
Silvano or anything, but we started doing extensible Java middleware
development in fall 1995 (!). Our code development has been going on
for almost 15 months, and we're a week away from shipping beta 2... :)
> that doesn't have any legacy backwards-compatibility concerns like
> http et al have.
Right. Infospheres doesn't have this problem, either, though we can
certainly put in plugs to interact just fine with RMI, HTTP, and IIOP...
And furthermore, JoeK & Mani say that the beta 2 of our package WILL be
released on this Friday, May 16... which is why (I guess) I'm still here
writing users guide documentation at midnight on a Saturday night...
> But, if the older transports can grow into what we want cleanly, I can
> live with that too.
Maybe they can. And if they can't, we're ready for that scenario, too.
Locked and loaded, I always say.
Actually, I've never said that until now.
> Anyway, I'm just having some fun with your snippets from Joe - keep
> 'em coming :-).
As long as JoeK keeps getting frustrated with Windows NT, the snippets
from him will flow like the river Nile. (Insert bad pun about De Nile
here.)
> Btw, man, you guys have been having MS problems,
> huh? Would you believe that I run win95 at home, as a true 97er,
> and never seem to have serious problems? My netscape browser
> is a lot less stable than 95 - it's Andreesen I'm gunning for :-)
I envy you.
Today I lost an hour because I accidentally hit some unknown control
sequence that turned on CAPSLOCK indefinitely. I couldn't figure out
how to do unlock. This wreaked countless havoc on my unix and emacs
sessions (yes, I'm using Windows NT as a glorified X server) - ever try
to do case sensitive commands when the lowercase is unavailable?
I rebooted and it still didn't unCAPSLOCK.
Luckily, with my point-and-click interface, I didn't need to use the
keyboard. Also luckily, MS DOS shell commands are insensitive to case.
I think what I ended up doing is deleting the keyboard driver and then
reinstalling it.
> One FAQ note: It's Gayl, not Gail.
Got it. Slowly but surely, we're getting some semblance of a FAQ.
http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~adam/LOCAL/faq-dist-obj.html
And slowly but surely, I'm telling the world about XML, too.
http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~adam/LOCAL/xml.html
But for the meantime, I suppose, I have users guide documentation to
write...
----
adam@cs.caltech.edu
anyway, now i feel settled, account-wise. next, a suite of interviews
here at sprint, starting a new o-o expert here today, spending another
mil or so on spare-parts, connectivity hardware, and development
software, and finding a good cup of coffee.
-- Joe Kiniry