Component technology

Many applications, for example in the area of telecomputing, banking and multimedia (but also in high performance computing and operating systems), require support for distribution and concurrency. Due to their complexity, these applications are likely candidates for an object-oriented approach. However, with regard to their distributed nature, some marriage between object-oriented computing and distributed computing must be realized.

Component technology

objects versus components -- definitions
interoperability
requirements for distribution
a simple workgroup application - extending hush with CORBA

Additional keywords and phrases: (D)COM, Java, CORBA, OLE, persistent objects, ODMG, workgroup

slide: Component technology

In this chapter we will study component technology, which combines object-oriented features such as encapsulation and (interface) inheritance with (logical and/or physical) distribution. In reality, component technology is not a clear-cut category but rather, according to [Szyperski97], a battlefield in action (with (D)COM, CORBA and Java as the main players), from which eventually a winner will arise, or perhaps a merge of technologies. In this chapter, we will explore the forces at work, and in addition we will look at a case study deploying CORBA and Java for the creation of a workgroup application, and the integration of CORBA with an existing framework, hush.