[e-lang] [RFP] cross-language object serialization (E <---> Squeak-E)

David Chizmadia vze2729k at verizon.net
Mon Jan 20 02:28:34 UTC 2003


On Sun, January 19, 2003 7:38 PM, Tyler Close wrote:
> On Sunday 19 January 2003 19:55, Robert Withers wrote:
> > WOS looks very interesting and very similar with the features
> > CDR offers.
> 
> What are the features that CDR offers? Could you go through the
> initial list of requirements that you proposed and give the
> answers for CDR? Before making any decisions, I think we need a
> chart of the requirements and how each possible solution meets
> them.
> 
> Is Chapter 5 of CORBA the best reference for CDR? Is there a
> formal grammar anywhere?

CDR is specified in the CORBA Core specification (for both CORBA 
2.6 and 3.0), Chapter 15, Section 3: CDR Transfer Syntax. Chap 5 
specifies the ValueType extensions to IDL, which is specified in 
Chap 3.

CORBA Core 3.0.2 URL:
ftp://ftp.omg.org/pub/docs/formal/02-12-06.pdf

CORBA Core 3.0.2, Chapter 15 URL:
ftp://ftp.omg.org/pub/docs/formal/02-06-51.pdf

CORBA Core 2.6 URL:
ftp://ftp.omg.org/pub/docs/formal/01-12-35.pdf

CORBA Core 2.6, Chapter 15 URL:
ftp://ftp.omg.org/pub/docs/formal/01-12-53.pdf


> 
> > The difficulty with any of them is that you need a way to
> > specify and disseminate novel types.    Can the client propagate
> > types to the server in some way?
> 
> Given that you are communicating between distict programming
> environments, there is nothing to propagate. In order to share
> types with E, you'ld have to implement a Kernel-E interpreter. At
> that point, you're no longer Squeak-E, but just E.

This sounds like a rather restrictive definition of Type. One can 
certainly specify and disseminate definitions of the signature and 
state of an object Type in a language- and platform- neutral way, 
since that is what CDR does. What can't be propagated is behaviour.
 
-DMC



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