Customer Reviews

The Essential Distributed Objects Survival Guide

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Orfali, Harkey & Edwards are some of the most influential leaders in the distributed object field. This book is highly readable, and does something that few comprehensive books do: present the technologies in a sufficient manner for both managers and programmers. Their biases are very clear throughout the book: they're rooting for CORBA/OpenDoc.. Which reflects the age of the book. Unfortunately OpenDoc looks to be lost, while CORBA continues to still be used by industry. They treat OLE (ActiveX) like a second-class component model. (It's up to you to decide if it really is :) However, this book will get you "there" faster than any other, with good sprinkles of Oliver Sims' Business Object work, and Taligent's Commonpoint technology (the concept of which may become our future computer user-interface..) A Must read!

First, this book is based upon information prior to August 1995. (There is a reference in the book to something that is to happen by August 1995.) The 1996 publish date is (IMHO) somewhat misleading. Their treatment of OLE/COM is partisan, but probably valid as of the date it was written. (See Understanding ActiveX and OLE for more current information.) Apparently Micro$oft agreed with some of the authors' objections, since some of the more objectionable parts of OLE have been changed. For example, ODL is out; enhanced IDL is in. All in all, it's a very good intro to CORBA/OpenDoc for people unfamiliar with the nonproprietary industry standard for distributed objects (like me). I'm glad I bought it, but I am searching for a better description of whatever it is in CORBA/OpenDoc that corresponds to Custom Controls (now known as ActiveX controls). Maybe I'm dense, but I missed it. I read this book after having read Understanding ActiveX and OLE. I'm glad I read these books in that order; I would have been mightily confused about OLE if my introduction to it was via The Essential Distributed Objects Survival Guide.

Your company's choice of middleware that distributes server objects across a network will dictate the flexibility of your code base for years to come. Orfali, Edwards, and Harkey do a great job of explaining the issues involved with distributed objects and the competing solutions. TEDOSG (this industry needs a few more acronyms) contains three sections: background on distributed objects, including what features are important in an "object bus"; the OMG's open approach, including CORBA; and Microsoft's approach using OLE (now DOLE, I believe, for Distributed OLE). This book is very readable, although the technological issues are stupendous and not always easy to keep track of. It is very well produced, with great sidebars and illustrations.

I knew I was in trouble when even in the first pages the authors never bothered to parse the acronyms that form the subject of this "Essential" guide. For example, CORBA and OLE remained useless clusters of letters until much further in the book.

My apprehension was confirmed as I delved deeper and the mists of this cute but uselessly-cartooned book grew ever more thick.

I've no doubt that these guys know their business. There were more buzzwords flying around in the first few paragraphs than Martians have saucers. Unfortunately, like a few too self-absorbed college profs. I once knew, they don't know how to teach.

If you really want an ESSENTIAL guide, grope in the dark a little further for a better explanation. This book won't help very much.

I found this book to be full of unintelligible jargon. If you don't already know what it means, don't expect to find out here. I'm tired of books like this. Is it so very difficult to start from the beginning and write clearly? *** It's not just the failure of the authors in a case like this -- what about the editors? It's their job to make sure that an ordinary, intelligent reader can understand an "introductory" text like this. Did *they* even understand it? *** Maybe CORBA is superior to COM (or maybe not) - but I'll tell you one thing: David Chappell's "Understanding ActiveX and OLE" is a model of how to do this kind of book *right*.

Hi friends, I am an E-commerce consultant in silicon valley , I can say only one thing about this book - This is a terrific book.