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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: dcop interfaces, standard ?
From:       Torben Weis <weis () stud ! uni-frankfurt ! de>
Date:       1999-12-09 9:48:49
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Hi,

On Mit, 08 Dez 1999, Bernd Gehrmann wrote:
> On Thu, 09 Dec 1999 Torben Weis wrote:
> 
> >In practice it often shows that dealing wirth multiple processes in a
> >distributed object environment you get really big problems because
> >it is so easy to make errors.
> 
> In practice it often shows that dealing with multiple 'programs'
> in one address space you get really big problems.
> 
> * Programs arbitrarily modify other programs' name space
> * Different programs may use different versions of the
>   same library => clash
> * Different programs may use the same symbol names => clash. 
>   Such problems are _really_ hard to find.
> * Different programas need their own event loop => doesn't work.

I know, You can find these points in my master thesis, too.
But apparently it is a fact that we did not get the CORBA
stuff to work.
 
> Furthermore, I've already mentioned the license problem; and
> of course, the problem of colliding i18n() strings is not solved 
> in the framework used by Konqueror or KOffice. It just works because
> all components are maintained in one place.

This is not a really big deal. We have KInstance and only need to
resolve relative to that. Perhaps coolo already has a better idea ?
 
> >That is IMHO the difference between theory and practice :-)
> 
> The theory that's spreaded here is that shared libraries are the 
> silver bullet which solves all problems. My experience is different. 

As Matthias wrote: Programming is NOT about silver bullets :-)

> And KOffice is not a good example for communication between components 
> because it is maintained in one central place so that you can really test
> how components work together. I want to use interfaces implemented
> by programs which I've never seen. These are very different boundary
> conditions.

Well, and if you use multiple processes than you rely on other things:
- Does the other app use the same communication protocol ?
- Is the implementation compatible (CORBA is not always in his history) ?
- Are the security models compatible ? (GNOME: cookies, MICO: SSL )

As you can see there are problems overall. Lets jump out of the window :-)
It depends on where you assume the smallest trouble for your program.
For KOffice, Konqui and others we had the smallest trouble when doing embedding
with shared libs and scripting&stuff with DCOP.

Your milage may be different.

Bye
Torben

> Bernd.

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