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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: A new framework for embedding ... without CORBA
From:       Simon Hausmann <shaus () uermel ! Med ! Uni-Magdeburg ! DE>
Date:       1999-09-29 8:14:58
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On Wed, 29 Sep 1999, Waldo Bastian wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Sep 1999, David Faure wrote:
> > 
> > Our master Torben has once more improved KDE's framework by ....
> > rewriting what used to be openparts, without using CORBA anymore,
> > just plain shared libraries. The benefits are huge, as you all guess,
> > and this is something we should consider very seriously.
> > Please note that this DOESN'T mean removing CORBA all together. 
> > We still need it for all the other cases where we use it right now :
> > talking to a running application (kfmclient<->konqueror/kdesktop, kmail, ...)
> > and scripting an application (which is the same kind of thing in fact).
> 
> So instead of moving to an open standard for desktop components we move
> closer to a Qt/TrollTech-only solution? 

Well, let's fact it: If you want to use OpenParts without libqt, then you
have to re-implement everything, so we depend on Qt anyway, and I
personally see absolutely no problem here (just in contrary, I
(personally) am very happy with that)

I think Torben's point in providing a new framework for *embedding*
is that using CORBA here is absolutely not necessary, just adds bloat,
kills performance and relibability.

Two arguments:

 1) currently KOffice documents/views are shared instances. This means if
    you embed KSpread in KPresenter and in KWord, KSpread gets launched
    only once. While this is in general a good thing, it arises the
    problem that if that one KSpread instance crashes, it takes
    KPresenter and KWord in its grave.

 2) Question: Will anyone *ever* embed a KOffice View over a network, when
    even the local (read: on the same machine) embedding is too slow to be
    usable?
    IMHO it is absolutely sufficient to restrict the graphical embedding
    of components to be available locally only, while gaining performance
   (make sure to actually *try* Canossa, you will be impressed by the
    performance of embedded components)


So this is no removal of an open desktop component standard IMHO, the idea
of components remains! It's just a matter of using fast and efficient C++
interfaces and shared libraries instead of CORBA.

(thus I fully support Torben's proposal)

Ciao,
 Simon

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