Excellent as a refresher on CORBA

If you are proficient C++/Java programer and have delved into the world of distributed computing in its many various forms (COM+/CORBA/EJB) and are familiar with UML, then this book will be easy to follow. As a technical architect I covered most of the material in three days and found it to be excellent as a refresher course on CORBA. The author does a good job on class design and laying out the code but getting the examples to work can prove quite daunting if this all new to you. For one Rosenberg should have used the freely available OmniORB instead of using Visigenic which you have to pay for (this would be an advisable approach for a later edition and for students if they ever use this book for a class). Another criticism i had was his use of Visual Cafe to design the GUI for Chapter 14. Please always take the least common denominator .. simply use the JDK and Swing to do all this stuff .. developers can always learn IDEs in their own spare time. Apart from that his Banking Application is an excellent realworld example of how you can put CORBA to work behind the scenes and chapter 14 is by far the best when you webify the entire application with a simple java GUI applet and all the CORBA business objects working together under the hood.

Beginners to CORBA should read the examples throughly and understand the code fully before delving into the examples. Then you can use the OmniORB to do all the CORBA plumbing - stick with it and when you get it all working it will be rewarding. I can sympathise somewhat with some of the previous comments on the examples in the book. And where is the CD? I never got one with my edition.

COM & CORBA - Side by Side is also an excellent resource to use as a supplement to this book.

BTW -> OmniOrb is available at: http://www.uk.research.att.com/omniORB

Other Reviews

• Bad Examples
• I love this book.
• Do you want the Good News, or the Bad News ?
• A good effort.
• Excellent as a refresher on CORBA