There’s a head of steam brewing around the Object Management Group’s Component Model RFP, which will essentially give its prized Corba object architecture a component development model to rival Microsoft Corp ActiveX on the desktop, but with real distributed services. Many companies supporting Sun Microsystems Inc’s JavaBeans component programming model are calling the planned specification CorbaBeans, as the RFP in essence will enable unsophisticated programmers to stay within the Java Cocoon and use Corba/IIOP without writing (or compiling) a lot of IDL Interface Definition Language code which is used to define Corba objects. The self-described ‘Web Tone’ companies, including Sun, Oracle, IBM, Netscape and others have already defined how JavaBeans can be integrated with Corba in a paper posted to OMG’s web site. The component model specification goes to vote at OMG’s September meeting in Dublin. OMG itself is building a head of steam around its forthcoming Corba 3.0 specifications will include the long-awaited specification for connecting Corba to Microsoft DCOM objects, more Java functionality, messaging, Java- to-IDL mapping (different to from the existing IDL-to-Java mapping but we don’t know how), multiple interfaces, more security, the so-called CorbaBeans a scripting language and more that’s still being planned. It could be done as soon as next January. OMG’s particularly pleased about pulling together a Unified Modeling Language specification: bringing together the entire world of object-oriented analysis and design was not easy, especially given most of us don’t understand it. OMG says it will be adopting its first set of vertical market specifications created by users – what it called domain specs – by September, for the telecoms and financial services industries.
