Customer Reviews

CORBA 3 Fundamentals and Programming, 2nd Edition

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This book has CORBA 3 in the title but CORBA 3 doesn't even exist yet. Despite this claim to conformance to a non-existing standard, the code examples use the BOA, which was deprecated ages ago. The POA is covered in only about three pages, which nowhere near enough. Other topics are covered to a similar level of non-detail. This book is definitely no use if you are programmer, and even for non-programmers, the coverage is probably too superficial to be of much use.

The book is a major disappointment. How can the title include "CORBA 3", althought the specification isn't even available (and won't be for quite some time)? Things that have long been deprecated (like the BOA) are still being used for the code samples. Important topics such as the POA are described in a few pages only. It seems that the author tries to explain everything there is to CORBA, but only manages to scratch the surface of each topic. It is a roller coaster of topics which is to be expected by having a dozen co-authors. The most embarrassing fact is that the author is working for the OMG. Spend your money on the excellent book by Henning & Vinoski. Whatever programming language you use, Siegel's book is worthless.

I was really raging that I bought this book. Full of buzzwords, whithout any deeper knowledge. There are a lot of very good CORBA books, but this is no one. This one is only ga ga.

This is the 5th CORBA book I've read, and the first one to help me understand how to write a CORBA program. I followed all the code in the book to create an OrbixWeb version of the author's programs. I'm very happy to say that the example works. In using the code from the book (I typed everything in, and didn't use the CD-ROM), I only needed to make 6 minor changes to the code to the get it to work (and I have never written a CORBA program before). I initially tried running CORBA examples from other books (including the Orbix Web documentation itself!), but the programs were always incomplete. There never seemed to be a step-by-step approach - until I picked up Jon Siegel's book. His treatment of OrbixWeb was absolutely correct. Thank you, Jon!

Examples are decent but the one provided by the ORBs in the included CD are helluvalot better. If you are looking for more than a first dive into the topic this is light-years away from any in-depth analysis. Fundamental topics such as the POA are just described in a couple of pages. Furthermore, even for beginners this is not a good book. In fact beginners will find themselves in dire straits in many places where the author introduces new interfaces without not just a definition but not even a one word description.

Book does not convey information in a concise way. Quite voluminous book with no depth. Definitely not a good book for any level of programmers.

Written by the OMG, this book is NOT for beginners, but if you get CORBA for dummies and this book, you'll be in like Flint! It is OMG's explanation of new features that are in CORBA 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4, collectively referred to as CORBA 3. The book is thick and meaty, and after a brief 100-page intro, gets down to the real business of explaining the new Services such as Naming, Event, Transaction, and Security Services as well as the CORBA Component Model. I can't name all of the new CORBA 3 features here. Simply to state - this book covers them all. It's must-reading for all experienced CORBA programmers.

My favorite CORBA 3 feature is Asynchronous Method Invocation. Prior to CORBA 2.4, all CORBA calls have been synchronous (blocking). This book gives a general overview (11 pages) of the new AMI. Enough so that, if you have an ORB that supports it, you can get the ball rolling. Typical of the rest of the book, this section leaves one wanting more info, but in a 900 page book there's only so much detail you can give. I highly recommend this book to CORBA programmers. In addition to bringing you up-to-date on the new features, it also provides 7 trial-version ORBs on the CD, plus all of the book's source code.

The CORBA Component Model is basically Enterprise Java Beans in a Lanbguage-independent form. It allows vendors to provide CORBA object which you can license and use, sort of like COM/DCOM objects. CORBA existed before COM. It's almost as if Microsoft took CORBA and Redmondized it. If you use Windows, you have COM and SOAP and .NET and whatever else Bill wants to pour down your throat. For the rest of us, the OMG is the best friend we have, and CCM is well worth learning.

Java, C++, and COBOL are all treated in this book.

I could go on and on. Bottom line: this is not the best introduction-to-CORBA book. It is, though, the one that will bring CORBA users up-to-date on the new features.

This is the 5th CORBA book I've read, and the first one to help me understand how to write a CORBA program. I followed all the code in the book to create an OrbixWeb version of the author's programs. I'm very happy to say that the example works. In using the code from the book (I typed everything in, and didn't use the CD-ROM), I only needed to make 6 minor changes to the code to the get it to work (and I have never written a CORBA program before). I initially tried running CORBA examples from other books (including the Orbix Web documentation itself!), but the programs were always incomplete. There never seemed to be a step-by-step approach - until I picked up Jon Siegel's book. His treatment of OrbixWeb was absolutely correct. Thank you, Jon!

I've read reviews here but was stupid enough to buy it anyway. Well, I can blame only myself now. This book desn't help at all. For example there is almost no information about basic CORBA concept, IDL, and CORBA data types, just brief description without any detailed specification. I don't know who could be target auditory for this book: if you are looking for some basic overview of CORBA, this book is written in such a language, that it is difficult to understand what author trying to say; if you need reference or programming guide, there is none.

This is a pretty good book for the beginners as well as the hardcore CORBA/JAVA programmers. The examples and the sample codes are quite interesting and realistic. Some of the CORBA ideas are not explained in full details though.