DII, DSI, IR and DynAny

[Sai-Lai Lo]

Thanks for your email. Many users have asked us when we'll provide DII, DSI
and IR. I've, in several messages posted to the mailing list, said that DII
and DSI are not high on our list of things to do and we do not plan to
implement IR.


DII and DSI
===========

It is worth pointing out that "DII and DSI are *useless* with
the current Any". This is a direct quote from Issue 479 of the C++ Revision
Task Force (RTF).

For instance, there is no way one can insert or extract a struct argument
using the DII interface unless the stub for the struct, generated by the
IDL compiler, is linked into the executable. This in turn defeats the whole
purpose of DII/DSI, does't it? If one has the stub linked in, one might as
well use SII.

The Dynamic Any interface (DynAny) is supposed to fix this problem and,
AFAIK, is only rectified recently as part of the C++ mapping rev 1.2.
Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think any commercial vendor has shipped an
ORB that supports DynAny yet. Only OmniBroker and Mico support DynAny,
there may be others but I'm not sure.

Pardon me for being provocative, what is the point of an ORB vendor,
us included, to claim that DII and DSI are supported when one knows that
without DynAny the interfaces are pretty useless?

FWIW, we do not see any need for DII and DSI in the ongoing projects at
ORL. Naturally we are not keen to implement the interfaces when other
things, such as the support for more (and faster) transports and QoS APIs
are more fun to do. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It would be really helpful to us and every omniORB2 user if someone
takes up the baton at this point to implement DII and DSI. 

We are doing our part in promoting CORBA through free software. May be it
is time to have more people joining this bandwagan and help sharing the
effort. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Besides, all the required functionalities are now in place. In the past, we
do not have Any and Typecode so DII/DSI cannot be done.  We promised to
support Any and Typecode when we made the first public release last
May. Today, we have finished the implementation and omniORB_2.5.0 will be
released this week with Any and Typecode support! It will not be more than
3-4 man-months to do the DII/DSI implementation, testing included.


DynAny
======

The good news is DynAny is being implemented at the moment. It will be
available real soon now. 

IR
==

This is another piece of software that is so low in priority on our list of
things to do that I cannot see us doing it in the foreseeable future.
This is another area that external contribution is much appreciated. 

I hope this clarify our position.

Sai-Lai Lo

-- 
Dr. Sai-Lai Lo                          |       Research Scientist
                                        |
E-mail:         S.Lo@orl.co.uk          |       Olivetti & Oracle Research Lab
                                        |       24a Trumpington Street
Tel:            +44 223 343000          |       Cambridge CB2 1QA
Fax:            +44 223 313542          |       ENGLAND