PostModern Computing Technologies Inc, a 10-month-old Palo Alto, California-based software start-up with strong ties to Stanford University, is said to be beta testing its set of C++ NetClass libraries for TCP/IP-based object transport among some 40 odd sites including the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Bell Laboratories, American Express Co, J P Morgan & Co, US West Inc, Shearson Lehman Japan and L M Ericsson Telefon AB. The company believes that its development tool, dubbed NetClasses, is the only one to support direct C++ object transport in addition to Remote Method Invocation and fault tolerant peer-to-peer connections. The libraries run initially on networks of Sparcstations and are being implemented for other hardware. The libraries are designed to enable programmers to move object between applications using TCP/IP and an asynchronous interprocess messaging paradigm. NetClasses transports generic C++ and National Institute of Health-derived objects as well as NetClasses Typed Objects which are run-time configurable objects whose structure is specified by programmers in external files using an abstract syntax notation. The NetClasses Distributed Services libraries form a connection management mechanism organised so network service providers don’t have to set up explicit port numbers and remote procedure call connections. Instead they simply advertise themselves on the network, PostModern said. Agents are active processes on the network that monitor network service advertisements and manage connections between information producers and consumers. The NetClasses Remote Method Invo cation libraries enable methods to be invoked programmatically on objects from remote mach ines. They can be built on top of the software’s Distributed Services package. Developer kits go for $3,000, run-time versions start at $500.
