Distributed Objects Everywhere: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:26, 14 December 2006

Revision as of 04:23, 26 April 2007

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Nevertheless this problem was being addressed in the early 1990s through the introduction of various [[shared library]] systems. These were actually intended to ease resource use on smaller platforms, by allowing a number of programs using a common resource, like the GUI, to share a single copy of code instead of each loading a separate copy into memory. As a side effect of being able to be called from many programs, these systems also defined a standard way to call them, using an [[interface definition language]], or IDL, to allow any language on the platform to understand the code inside the library.

Extending these systems to support [[remote procedure call]]s behind the scenes was seen as a natural evolution, providing a solution to the client/server programming problem. At the time there were a number of major projects to delverdeliver such a system, including [[IBM]]'s [[System Object Model]] (SOM/DSOM), [[NeXT]]'s [[Portable Distributed Objects]], [[Microsoft]]'s [[Component Object Model]] (COM/DCOM) and many [[CORBA]] flavors. Sun, attempting to position itself as the future IBM in terms of backoffice support, felt they had to attack this market as well.

== Spring, DOE, OpenStep, NEO ==

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By the time DOE, now known as NEO, was released in 1995,<ref>{{cite press release

|publisher= Sun Microsystems, Inc.

|date= [[September 20]], [[1995]]

|url= http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/1995-09/sunflash.950920.1420.xml

|title= SUNSOFT INTRODUCES NEO, THE INDUSTRY'S FIRST COMPLETE NETWORKED OBJECT COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

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}}</ref> Sun had already moved on to [[Java (programming language)|Java]] as their next big thing. Java was now the GUI of choice for client-side applications, and Sun's OpenStep plans were quietly dropped (see [[Lighthouse Design]]). NEO was re-positioned as a Java system with the introduction of '''Joe''',<ref>{{cite press release

|publisher= Sun Microsystems, Inc.

|date= [[March 26]], [[1996]]

|url= http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/1996-03/sunflash.960326.13870.xml

|title= SUN ANNOUNCES PRODUCT THAT CONNECTS JAVA TO BUSINESS APPLICATIONS

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| last = Shah

| first = Rawn

| date = [[June 1]], [[1996]]

| title = Distributed Object Computing with Joe and NEO

| journal = JavaWorld