Re: [gnome-db] [Fwd: Re: Communications in Projects...]

[Adam Tauno Williams <adam morrison-ind com>]

>>>>>>I've been a bit from gnome-db development, but, based on my
>>>>>future I'll be keeping both eyes on it, very closely... So, if this
>>>>>honor can be delegated to me, I'd be glad to help.
>>>>>Surely, I won't be chopping so many words in the report. ;)
>>>>>I meant 'been a bit far from'... and 'based on my future plans
>>>>I'll' I'm certainly not qualified to comment on development issues (way
>>>>over my head).  But I'm re-doing my "Data Access tools for Linux"
>>>>presention (the one linked to from the gnome-db doc page) and after I 
>>>>finish that I  hope to actually try writting an app using gnome-db.  So 
>>>>I'll offer to help in any "documentation" tasks someone want's to throw 
>>>>my way.  have been pounding the merits of gnome-db on other developement
>>>>lists I'm subscribed to.  I really wish there was PHP bindings as
>>>>what I spend 4~6 hours a day writting.
>>>it would be very nice to have PHP bindings.
>>>>Theoretical question:
>>>>GDA is a CORBA object, yes?  So I don't really *need* Bonobo to
>>>>a GDA provider,  I could do it directly via CORBA. (?)  Or does GDA
>>>>Bonobo as it is activated by OAF?
>>>well, I think you'll need Bonobo bindings, although it might be
>>>possible to just use PHP-ORBit (ORBit bindings for Python) to access
>>>CORBA objects. The only problem on using only ORBit is, as you say,
>>>activation, which will be more problematic than using OAF directly.
>>>But I think this is something that can be done perfectly. 
>>Here is what I understand -
>>1. gnome-session starts gnome-name-service.  
>>2. gnome-name-service puts its own IOR in a root X property so other
>>applications can find it
>no, those 2 steps are no longer true. They were when GNOME was using
>libgnorba, but not anymore. Bonobo/CORBA clients now communicate
>directly with oaf

Great, because that looked way to hard.

>>3. something (?) starts oafd
>>4. oafd registers itself with gnome-name-service
>>5. application looks up the components they want via gnome-name-service 
>>(using the IOR in the X property).
>>6. application asks OAF to create component XYZ
>>7. application receives IOR of new component
>>8. subsequent application<->component chatter is via "pure" CORBA(?)
>it is:
>1. client contacts oaf and asks it to load a component
>2. oaf looks for the component
>3. oaf returns the loaded component to the client

Alright,  I'll dive into the OAF documentation.

Step #3 means that OAF returns an IOR, yes?

>>If this is correct I'd need to create some way for a gnome-name-server
>>to get
>>started without an X session and in the security context of the httpd
>>process.
>as I said, it's not correct. You have to talk to OAF, or add tou GDA
>the code to save the IOR in some known place so that you can pick it up
>from  PHP. But this will make the PHP bindings only work if a GDA
>provider is up and running.

I think talking to OAF is the correct, and more flexible, way.

>>Just wondering if I am near the mark.
>>>>If I have XML-RPC/SOAP/CORBA bridging middle-ware,  I should then
>>>>be able to access the GDA provider via XML-RPC?  (I'm currently using
>>>>XML-RPC for other stuff).
>>>oops, that is a very nice idea. In theory, you should just have a
>>>gda-xmlrpc-srv component which listens to a SOAP/XML-RPC port and
>>>maps XML requests/responses to GDA CORBA calls.
>>>Or, another way would be to have this gda-xmlrpc-srv a client thing
>>>and have a SOAP/XML-RPC server respond to the calls (via HTTP+XML)
>>>from the gda-xmlrpc-srv.
>>>That would be a really nice thing to experiment on. Please keep us
>>>informed if you start working on something like this
>>I was thinking of it a the other way around.  I have an application
>>(written in PHP, but that doesn't really matter), that supports XML-RPC. 
>>I have middle-ware that supports XML-RPC, CORBA, etc... protocols,  either 
>>in a messaged format or a "through" persistant connection.    So if I can 
>>get the CORBA object up and running, and acquire it's IOR, I hopefully 
>>won't have to bother GDA at all as  I'm hopeless as a C programmer.
>>(Performance may stink in such an arrangement, but this is just an
>> experiment).
>yeah, sounds nice also. A SOAP/XML-RPC server that translates the XML
>to GDA calls. Maybe you won't need to deal at all with the IOR, since we
>could make that server just a plain SOAP/XML-RPC thing, and you, from
>PHP, just talk SOAP to it.

It sounds promising anyway,  I'll try to hack on it this weekend.