Fundamentals of Distributed Object Systems: The CORBA...

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 424 pages
• Published by: Wiley-Interscience
• Edition: 1st Edition February 21, 2001
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0471351989
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0471351986
• Book Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 1.6 pounds

Reader Reviews
The book is divided into three parts: Basics of CORBA, Advanced CORBA, and CORBA Services. Part one gives an intro to distributed systems and CORBA, including a bit of CORBA programming (in Java). Part two talks about object adapters, interoperability, and caching. Part three covers naming, trading, event, transaction, and query services. Unfortunately, there is a lot to criticise about this book. On the editorial side, you get a shocking job: it is plain that no copy editor or proof reader has ever been near this work. Spelling and grammatical errors abound, as well as inconsistent use of fonts; the index is put together without any great care. The writing style is mostly poor. The prose is often stilted or redundant, uses obtuse phrasing, and is full of vague descriptions. Terms such as "usually", "in general", and "typically" are used liberally and, more often than not, are followed by descriptions that are imprecise or vague, leaving the reader wondering whether the authors properly understand what they are trying to explain. More seriously, in many places, the authors are unable to take the reader step by step through a topic. Often, the discussion veers off to something that is completely irrelevant, making it difficult for the reader to develop a clear mental picture of how things hang together. The presentation of IDL is intermingled with (poor) explanations of language mapping issues, leaving a tangled and incomplete mess. The book doesn't describe a particular version of CORBA but appears to be largely based on the authors' experience with OrbixWeb. This means that much of the book talks about a now obsolete and proprietary BOA implementation. (Given that POA implementations have been available for more than two years, it is beyond me why anyone would publish a book based on the BOA in 2001.) The POA is covered as well, but in such confused language that it is difficult to understand what the POA is or how it really works. Little or no guidance is provided as to how to use the POA effectively for a given a set of implementation requirements. Much of the material has been provided in more correct and accessible form elsewhere, and little in this book is original. Of great concern is the authors' apparent lack of knowledge of CORBA; the book contains many errors. Some choice examples: - CORBA has no support for late binding. - CORBA [...] supports the types "Any" (for fixed type length) and "DynAny" (for variable type length). - IDL identifiers must be declared in lower cases. [sic] - An example of nested declaration is found in the module CORBA: module org { module omg { module CORBA { /* ... */ }; }; }; - enum ParamMode { IN, OUT, INOUT }; All these statements are plainly incorrect; the book contains many more such mistakes. The coverage of CORBA services is equally disappointing, with incomplete, sloppy, and superficial explanations that are hard to follow. The book was written as a textbook for use at universities; I pity the students who will have to answer exam questions based on this material. Comment | | (Report this)