Customer Reviews

COM and CORBA® Side by Side: Architectures, Strategies, and Implementations

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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Not only did "COM & CORBA Side by Side" did an excellent job of comparing COM & CORBA, it laid out a number of strategies to apply *both* technologies' strengths in designing and implementing your distributed system solutions. As Part 1 of the book is aptly titled, the book's overriding theme is embracing COM & CORBA to your advantage. Evolutionary background and current technology trends in distributed computing were covered thoroughly. Development issues on both client & server sides were given enough treatment to satisfy 2 groups of audience: developers who want to understand the implementation details & differences of COM & CORBA, and decision makers who need strategic information on the technology's main players and future directions.

However, the key to the entire book is Part 4 that covers COM & CORBA bridging strategies ranging from custom approaches (C++, JVM) to third-party commercial products (Visual Edge's ObjectBridge) to enterprise application servers that provide support for client & server components implemented with both COM & CORBA. This is probably the only COM & CORBA book currently available that provides comprehensive information on this topic. My only complaint is that only one commercial bridging product was covered in this section. I wish the author had spent more time on other third-party bridging solutions. Well, maybe that can be covered in a second edition.

The book is also logically laid out with executive summary before and after each chapter and major section. What I also like about the book's presentation is the example code are higlighted with light gray background, making it easy to distinguish between text & programming details. In all, it is refreshing to come across a book that promotes building solutions by harnessing the strengths of competing technologies and does a very good job at that with real code & examples.

This is an amazing book which covers such a diverse field in distributed computing. This field is often confusing and sometimes even intimidating with many emerging technologies involving many programming languages and different platforms. Dr. Pritchard did an excellent job to bring much needed clarity in his book.

The book has a very good organization and it is very easy to follow. It starts with a brief discussion on the history and background of distributed objects with some fundamental concepts. It then presents a comprehensive and objective comparison of COM and COBRA on both server and client sides. The book is completed with the presentation of bridging techniques between COM and COBRA, enabling the two to interoperate and coexist in an enterprise system. Dr. Prichard apparently has applied both COM and COBRA in practical projects, and therefore he is able to share his past experiences in using these technologies. He offers many technical insights in the planning and assessment, design and architecture, as well as implementation details with code examples in C++, Java and VB. I enjoyed reading his strategy discussions the most. There are too many books on the market which are filled with codes and technical details. This is a rare book which puts an equal emphasis on planning and design strategies.

This book covers a variety of topics such as: MTS, MSMQ, ADO, ASP, OTS, JavaBeans and Enterprise JavaBeans, just mentioning a few. Dr. Pritchard presents these topics in a concise yet clear fashion. I am truly amazed that he could present all these topics with such a clarity, illustrating his deep understanding on the subject. It is certainly a book to keep for anyone who is working on or planning an enterprise distributed object system with either COM or COBRA.

If you're in the process of architecting a new system or planning to rearchitect an existing system, this book will prove invaluable in helping you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Even if you're just interested in both technologies and want to dig deeper into each, this book is a sure bet!

This book is quite thin, and yet it includes so much. The open mind towards competing technologies is important, we should all look at facts in an objective way. The book gives an excellent view on COM, CORBA and the differences between them. It also shows programming examples (not in depth) and explains things like "push" technologies very good. I would expect the first book in this subject (side-by-side approach) written by a technician, to be too detailed, with a poor language and not very educational. I was very wrong. An amazing book!

After reading most of this book it is clear that the author has significant practical experience developing solutions with both COM and CORBA technologies. This is a pleasant change from the theoretical emphasis in the several books on each of these subjects. It seems many of these are by professional writers, trainers or technology evangelists, and others are sponsored by technology development organizations.

I like the very clear way that Dr. Pritchard imparts real world insights into engineering with both COM and CORBA. The comparisons of different aspects of the technologies are well presented in a (for once) unbiased manner. The code examples, which are in VB, Java and C++, are well thought out and clearly illustrate the issues under discussion. Also the organization of the book into client, server, and bridging sections adds to its overall readability.

This is not an entry-level developer textbook, but for those familiar with one or both technologies it is great for understanding the relative benefits of each technology. It has lots of tips and helpful insights, and addresses some issues that hadn't occurred to me before.

This book is quickly becoming one of my favorites because it is helping me decide between using COM or CORBA in our future product line. I know COM fairly well but didn't know CORBA, thus this book is helping me immeasurably. Talk about perfect timing! Using this book I am can compare the architectures as advertised- but I can also get a feel for the coding effort involved by using the code samples supplied. This was been an unexpected bonus and will allow me to prepare the development teams for whatever path I take. I have recommended your book to others in the company and it is now required reading for my architecture team.

Jason has done a great job in comparing both COM and CORBA from not only a technical stand point but more importantly from an implementation stand point. He points out the pros and cons of both technologies giving in-depth code examples, reviews issues that organizations face everyday when implementing the technologies and how to pick the right technology to use for your organization/project.

The examples are great not only to explain a point but also for reference. I would recommend having this book around all the time just for the reference material and examples provided in it.

Julian Critchfield Vice President of Development, HotData Inc.

At last a practical book which puts aside individual biases and deals with the reality of how to make two of the dominate distributed technologies coexist and how to get the most out of them.

The book is concise and well written making it very accessible to engineers and architects who do not deal with these technologies on a daily basis but need to have a working knowledge of them in order to set the technology direction for their company or for a project.

I would love to see Jason do a similar treatment for other distributed technologies such as EJB and Voyager.

Jason's book offers a unique blend of technical education, architectural insights, and developer tips while spanning an impressive range of topics.

Jason compares COM and CORBA, gives real-world examples of how to make COM and CORBA interoperate, demonstrates how to use each technology on client desktops and servers, discusses integration with mainframe applications and asyncronous communications services, and provides illuminating examples for Visual Basic, (Visual) C++, and Java developers.

As if this weren't enough, he provides code samples that work with Iona Orbix, Microsoft Transaction Server, Microsoft Message Queue, and InPrise (Visigenic) Visibroker.

A concise and comprehensive analysis of two technologies that are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Mr. Pritchard did an excellent work of dissecting each one and at the same time, achieved a perfect balance between theory and code examples that is so rare on this field. If you need to decide between COM and CORBA on your next eBusiness or back-office integration project, this book will set you on the right path.