[omniORB] omniORB 3.0.x

[Jeff Schnitzer]

>From: Daniel Popowich [mailto:popowich@chiliad.com]
>
>The problem folk are having is this: java passes by reference, so to
>express java in IDL required a new IDL type: valuetype. This allows
>passing objects by value.  Think of it as a struct with methods, or an
>interface with data.  The irony is that no other orb other than Sun's
>jdk (that I know of) support the new IDL types.  So, it will be great,
>someday.

I'm in the exact same situation; in fact, I subscribed to this list two
days ago because I'm trying to figure out how to use RMI-IIOP to talk to
a C++ server object.

My guess is that if someone was super careful writing the Java
interfaces (use byte[] instead of String, simple types only), rmic will
probably produce idl which makes omniORB happy.

Unfortunately I need to be able to burst an array of structures across
the wire on a single remote call, so I (apparently) need valuetypes.
I'm bewildered that CORBA had no standard way to send structs until so
recently; Microsoft has had structs in the DCOM IDL for years.

I'm going to be taking a look at Orbacus (http://www.ooc.com/ob/) next;
it claims to support valuetypes.  It's a commercial product but
supposedly free for noncommercial use.  I believe there are other
commercial ORBs which support valuetypes, but they get pretty expensive.

Jeff