Is ORBit documented?

[Todd Graham Lewis <tlewis mindspring net>]

Hi, all.  My big project at the moment is the Dents name server, which
Johannes Erdfelt and Greg Rumple writing and which they allow me to
play with.  (http://www.dents.org for more details.)  It's GPL'd, and
we all hope and plan for it will be successful.

Anyway, one of the neat features is a control facility which allows an
admin to talk to a running server, add zones on the fly, etc.  Right now
this is done via a line-oriented, hand-made protocol.  I want to do a
simple CORBA implementation of a few functions in order to demonstrate
how easy it is and hopefully persuade the other guys to adopt CORBA for
the control facility.

I've written the .idl for the function I want to start out with: it
just lists all of the zones for which the server is authoritative.
I can generate all of the C code just fine from the .idl, and I can
code the client and server functions just find.  The problem which I am
running into is that I don't understand how to use ORBit, and I can't
find any docs.  I need to know how to take the already-extant select
loop in my server and connect that to my server function(s).

The lack of docs is a little frustrating.  We were looking at using glib
for a lot of stuff, too, but we gave up on it for the same reason: after
Johannes noticed that it was up to the caller of several glib functions
to free memory, and that this requirement was not documented, he vetoed
its use, rightfully so I think.

I really want to use ORBit.  Whichever ORB we use, I would like to work
with the authors to add support for the security service; I have been
reading up on it and I think I understand how to implement most of the
requisite functionality using kerberos, which I understand fairly well.
I would really like for GNOME apps to benefit from this work as well.

If someone wants to answer a few questions of mine, then I would be
happy to write up what I learn and submit it for inclusion among the
ORBit docs.  If there is just no time for this now, then please let
me know so that I can dig further among ORBit-using apps for examples,
or start shopping around for other ORBs.

--
Todd Graham Lewis            32°49'N,83°36'W          (800) 719-4664, x2804
******Linux******         MindSpring Enterprises      tlewis@mindspring.net

"A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood."          -- George S. Patton