🚀 go-pugleaf

                 RPCs vrs. ASYNCHRONOUS MESSAGING 

   This topic has been the subject of much discussion on a mailing list that 
 I have organized called the Corporate Facilitators of Object-Oriented
 Technology(CFOOT). At a higher level of abstraction, the same question is
 posed as client-server vrs. peer-to-peer interactions. From a pragmatic
 viewpoint, when components of a distributed system are relatively
 independent and/or run in heterogeneous environments, an asynchronous
 peer-to-peer approach seems more suitable as the foundation paradigm.
 This allows capabilities such as priority message queuing, broadcasting,
 guaranteed delivery, notification and synchronous requests to be supported.
   For distributed application components working in a local environment,
 the RPC client-server type of communication may be adequate and could 
 be simpler to program. The efforts of several of the multivendor consortiums
 seem to be focused on this RPC client-server approach. For example, the
 OSF/DCE and the OMG Object Request Broker.
   At the same time there are many commercial products appearing that provide 
 asynchronous messaging capabilities across heterogeneous networks and
 platforms. Unfortunately most of these products have proprietary interfaces.
 Some of the strongest supporters of the OMG/ORB approach are also working
 on independent messaging products(e.g. Sun with Tooltalk and HP with the
 Broadcast Message Server). It is unclear how these products will interoperate
 with OSF/DCE, OMG/ORB or each other. One possibility might be to extend 
 the OMG/ORB to encapsulate asynchronous messaging capabilities.
   I have an overview of current messaging and RPC products that I can mail 
 to anyone who is interested. Let me know if you would like to be added to
 the CFOOT mailing list also.
 
                                      Bob Marcus
                                      rmarcus@atc.boeing.com
				      (206) 865-3189