Distributed object computing (DOC) has received a substantial amount of attention over the past several years. DOC uses OO techniques to distribute reusable services and applications over multiple, often heterogeneous, computing and networking elements. The most widely publicized DOC tools are based on OMG's CORBA, Microsoft's Distributed COM (DCOM), and JavaSoft's Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI).

With potentially lucrative technologies like DOC, there are always opportunists who ``ride the wave'' to further their careers, regardless of whether they truly understand or support the technology. Over the past decade, I've witnessed this phenomenon with AI expert systems, CASE tools, OO methods, software process maturity models, C++, frameworks, components, patterns, and Java. It's remarkable to watch the same opportunists re-position themselves time and again, with every change in technological fashion and fortune.

Recently I've spoken with several notable technologists who feel that the hype associated with DOC technologies is yet another example of the triumph of marketing over technology. While I share their distain for the shameless hucksterism surrounding DOC, I don't think it's quite as easy to dismiss distributed object computing as it was to dismiss earlier generations of over-hyped technologies like CASE tools. Here's why:

• DOC products have been used successfully in practice to solve real problems (particular for business applications and network element management). In contrast, CASE tools generally weren't useful enough to justify their enormous price tags. CASE tools solved a relatively small number of real problems (e.g., tracking dependencies between documentation and code). But due to the high costs, many sellers and buyers wanted to believe that they solved practically all their problems and worked flawlessly.

• Some very technically talented engineers are building the next generation DOC products at companies like IONA, JavaSoft, Microsoft, and Visigenics. They are shipping increasingly good products. In a year or so, I suspect that the existing performance bottlenecks in DOC products will largely be alleviated.

• There are some very bright researchers extending and standardizing complex aspects of DOC (such as fault tolerance, replication, caching, and real-time quality of service). For instance, take a look at the latest white paper from the Real-time CORBA SIG, which is authored by many respected members of the Real-time research community. Within the next 2 years, I predict there will be a number of credible real-time DOC products available on a range of OS platforms.

• DOC standards, particularly CORBA, are improving with respect to key features like portability, asynchronous messaging, multimedia streaming, and end-to-end quality of service. At this stage, it's more productive to work on improving CORBA, rather than trying to start a new standard from scratch.

This issue of C++ Report contains three articles that focus on CORBA. Jennifer Hamilton describes the use of Distributed SOM's ``DirectToSOM'' C++ compiler; Steve Vinoski and I present an overview of the CORBA Events Service; and Rocky Stewart, James Storey, and Dehua Huang illustrate how they've enhanced the CORBA Events Service and applied it to a commercial CORBA-based telecommunications management system. We'll be covering other C++ DOC technologies, in particular DCOM, in subsequent issues of the C++ Report.

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Last modified 18:06:19 CST 25 January 2019