I have just answered to 'Squeak CORBA' but coming up to this thread I see
it is even much more relevant here. Just have a look at


http://object.dcs.fmph.uniba.sk/Diploma_theses/1995_Kobetic_Neurath/www/trilogy.html.

It's implementation (source code available also there, free - it had been
diploma theses) is in VW so if somebody wants and has some time ...

Augustin Mrazik


Patrick Logan wrote:

>     I would like to create an application which runs seamlessly across
>     multiple machines and platforms, but it's too hard because the
>     communication and coordination is a bitch.
>
>     Possible solution:
>             Expand the "image" concept to encompass an
>             entire "world".
>
>     Not having access to a Sun platform I've never run Self, but the
>     descriptions I've read make it sound like Self did something like
>     this, at least for the development "half" (the other half being
>     the deployment "half").
>
>     Basically I want collaboration with little pain and lots of gain.
>
> Another approach is the simple message passing approach. This would be
> interesting to consider, given Alan Key's recent email to this list
> about "messages" vis-a-vis "objects".
>
> Consider the programming language named Erlang from Ericsson. It is a
> concurrent and distributed language with no shared memory. All
> communication is by sending high-level messages. Receivers can pattern
> match on messages with time outs, etc. What Erlang calls "processes"
> can be linked to each other for high level process control and
> reliability.
>
> There are several production-quality communications programs built
> with hundreds of thousands of lines of Erlang code, so it seems to
> have some practicality, which may meet the "lots of gain"
> requirement. The simplicity of it seems to meet the "little pain"
> requirement.
>
> Another approach is the Linda model which provides more of a "shared
> name space". The Erlang approach provides a name space of processes
> where Linda provides a name space of messages. Gemstone provides a
> model of the "worldwide multi-user image" but that is a much more
> complicated approach for the implementor.
>
> --
> Patrick Logan                 mailto:patrickl at gemstone.com
> Voice 503-533-3365            Fax   503-629-8556
> Gemstone Systems, Inc         http://www.gemstone.com
>
> "I am not a Church numeral; I am a free variable!"