Re: ORBit newbie question.

[sopwith redhat com (Elliot Lee)]

On 7 Jun 1999 23:25:49 -0400, Mathieu Fenniak <laotzu@pobox.com> wrote:

>I've been reading documentation that's accessable through the links at
>http://ww.labs.redhat.com/orbit, and I have some questions that may sound
>completely stupid and I'm not sure or not. Pretty much I want to write a method
>of storing and retrieving data that will be used for multiple applications. As
>an example, say I want to write one program that I can use to record how many
>beers I've drunken, and then I want my e-mail client to find out how drunk I am
>and append it to my signature. I figure using CORBA may be the best way, if
>this was complicated data. One program would be able to call a method of an
>interface to say how much I've drunk, another to retrieve it.

This is entirely possible...

>alright, this message is going nowhere fast. Would I be required to have a
>server program running at all times so that ORBIt could call such a method?

To access a CORBA object, there must be a server running that implements it.
ORBit short-circuits CORBA calls to servers running in the same address
space, which facilitates shared library CORBA plugin thingies.

>Is there an easier way of making globally accessable persistant data, that
>wouldn't require every program writing and reading a file, or something so
>static?

Sometimes the simplest way is the best. If you don't need to share the data
between computers, and don't want to worry about the security implications,
I'd go with fopen() any day ;-)

CORBA is good for:
	Sharing statefulness among multiple programs or
	computers, and coordinating access to that state.

Use what fits the requirements best,
-- Elliot
"how smy riting? male dmefqd@fqptmf.com"