distributed computing implementations

[Cameron Laird]

In article <b6f66v$28k$1 at slb3.atl.mindspring.net>,
Andrew Dalke <adalke at mindspring.com> wrote:
>robin:
>> If you want the biggest, boldest approach and don't care about
>> overhead, use CORBA.
>
>What overhead would this be?  From what I see of omniORB,
>there isn't really that much.  Also, CORBA is the most complete,
>eg, it allows callbacks and passing around object references
>the others don't have.
At a technical level, CORBA's as easy for an application
developer as, say, SOAP.  It has a lot of overhead, though,
in the muddy thoughts of managers.
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>I wouldn't put SOAP as simple, and I've had problems with
>interoperability between various packages.  If I needed to pass
>simple data around, I would use XML-RPC.
My first instinct is to write my own tiny protocol, and
pass strings around.  Often enough, that's all I need--
and look!  we're back to language-neutrality.
>
>> If you want the ultimate in simplicity and are willing to foresake
>> multi-language support, use Dopy, Pyro, or Twisted Spread.
>
>One reason I'm looking at Twisted is because it handles other
>interfaces as well.  I need to talk to SQL databases, SOAP and
>XML-RPC servers, straight HTTP, and spawned off external
>processes.
>
>There is also older interfaces, like PVM and MPI from the
>high-performance computing world, and Linda, and more,
>but I haven't looked into them for years.
Tuple space and parallel architectures can be FAR more 
"efficient" for scientific and engineering problems.
SOAP and such are just concessions to commercial misunder-
standings about what business needs.

I write this as a SOAP specialist and advocate.
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-- 

Cameron Laird <Cameron at Lairds.com>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://phaseit.net/claird/home.html