Re: Comments about the Java DOM interfaces

Jonathan Robie wrote:
> 
> We are using the IDL as an abstract way of specifying interfaces, not as a
> way of defining distributed systems. 

I'm not so interested in distributed systems as in inter-language
communication, but distributed systems are a nice side effect.

> Looking at the output of Sun's
> idltojava, it is very complex, and most of this complexity has nothing to
> do with what we are actually trying to accomplish. I think the best way to
> see this may be to download the idltojava program from Sun and compare its
> output with the code we created.

I've done that, and a quick browse through the files doesn't reveal to
me any real extraneous stuff. Of course there are all of the distributed
object support files (_*.java, *Helper.java, *Holder.java) , but you can
just delete those if all you want is the interfaces, can't you? Can't
you just concatenate the real interface files and call that "the Java
interface"? I noticed that the enumeration is a little ugly, but Java
enumerations are pretty weak. And ugly enumerations seem a small price
to pay for reliable inter-language communication and distributed
operability.

Perhaps you could just give me some examples of things that are very
different between what you are developing and what idl2java produces
(other than the helper/holder cruft).
 
BTW, It was nice to meet you too. Hopefully we'll meet again somewhere
where we have more time to talk. I found your paper interesting and I'm
pondering the ideas therein...
-- 
Paul Prescod -- http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

Art is always at peril in universities, where there are so many people, 
young and old, who love art less than argument, and dote upon a text 
that provides the nutritious pemmican on which scholars love to chew. 
				-- Robertson Davies in "The Cunning Man"

Received on Friday, 19 December 1997 20:43:03 UTC