From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ronald G Minnich To: <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan 9 versus CORBA? In-Reply-To: <64055d11.0109181242.7ffbaafd@posting.google.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 08:28:38 -0600 Topicbox-Message-UUID: ef86f490-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Fri, 21 Sep 2001, Andrew Simmons wrote: > I'm working on a distributed application using C++ and CORBA, and > apart from the sheer mind-numbing complexity of both, I'm finding it > an increasing strain just to lift the books I need to consult - over > 1000 pages each. Yeah, that stuff really sucks. Plus it is so complex how do you know if it's working right and that it will continue to work right. Plus on any given day on any given machine your C++ code can refuse to compile or work, for reasons unknown. Plus, last time I looked, CORBA runs about as fast as congealed oatmeal. True story: I once asked a CORBA fanatic how fast his ORB could run a simple null operation. "Really fast", he said, "so fast I can hardly see it run. Must be 2 or 3 per second." Plan 9 by contrast looks like the Next Right Thing. I haven't seen anything CORBA does that Plan 9 can't do as well, although in a pinch the corba manual set can double as a jackstand. But you do have to change your thinking a bit. As for commercial use: on that score, Plan 9 in people's minds is kind of where Linux was 10 years ago (save for a couple design-ins). We're still in the "what's that" stage. Now that it is finally Open Source that should improve. So remind your bosses that somebody had to take a chance with Unix, then other people took a chance with Linux, and the risk-takers can win big. We're just beginning that battle out here, and I don't expect to reach the "Oh! I get it!" stage for 5 more years. But we're the gummint, so things can be slow. > On a totally unrelated note, I'd be interested to find out why rob > pike spells his name in lower case. Is this a literary device, like ee > cummings, or does Plan 9 not support upper case? so who remembers (if you do you're old) when unix used to be called the "ee cummings operating system" I remember it but refuse to admit I'm old. I still take @@@@ occasionaly about failure to capitalize. ron