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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Abput DCOP
From:       Thiago Macieira <thiago () kde ! org>
Date:       2006-02-24 14:21:46
Message-ID: 200602241521.47597.thiago () kde ! org
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Joaquín Fernández Quiles wrote:
>Hi.. I am developing a program for KDE and i have read several post
> about DCOP. I was wondering what is DCOP? for what is? how can i use
> it?
>
>I have read some links but are a few complicated for me.

DCOP stands for Desktop COmmunication Protocol. It's the Inter-Process 
Communication and Remote Procedure Calling (IPC, RPC for short) mechanism 
that we use throughout KDE. It has existed since 1999 and has been a part 
of KDE since 2.0's betas.

It's a really simple message-passing mechanism that relies on existing 
technologies (namely, ICE and Qt's QDataStream). 

You can create DCOP interfaces by writing abstract C++ classes and 
processing them with the proper dcopidl* tools. The KDE buildsystem 
automatically does that for you if you declare your files as *.skel or 
*.stub.

However, we're probably going to phase DCOP out for KDE 4. For many 
reasons, we're investigating alternatives and the current front-runner is 
D-Bus. There's a high probability that KDE 4 will use D-Bus instead of 
DCOP. And where DCOP was simple, D-Bus is designed to be interoperable 
with other languages other than C++/Qt.

As an anecdote, the day DCOP was introduced in KDE became later known 
as "the day we made KDE 10 times faster", because it replaced the CORBA 
solution that was there, or so I'm told. I wasn't around yet to witness 
that event. :-)

Disclaimer: I am the current maintainer of the QtDBus library and probably 
the main advocate for its use.
-- 
  Thiago Macieira  -  thiago (AT) macieira.info - thiago (AT) kde.org
    PGP/GPG: 0x6EF45358; fingerprint:
    E067 918B B660 DBD1 105C  966C 33F5 F005 6EF4 5358

4. And æfter se scieppend ingelogode, he wrát "cenn", ac eala! se 
rihtendgesamnung andswarode "cenn: ne wát hú cennan 'eall'. Ástynt."

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