a comparison of corba and ada's distributed systems annex
With the recent advent of affordable computers, and the increased computing needs in numerous different fields, distributed computing has become quite popular. Along with this popularity has come several different approaches for creating distributed systems. Ada is fortunate to have multiple approaches available, each distinctively different from each other. One approach is to use a separate middle layer to allow different parts of the Ada distributed program to communicate. The Common Object Request Broker Architecture, or CORBA, uses this approach. Another approach is to use an extension of the language made for the creation of distributed systems, meaning no extra layers need to be added. This language extension approach is used by Ada's Distributed Systems Annex. While both approaches have their merits, CORBA has received much more attention than Ada's Distributed Systems Annex. This paper is the result of an undergraduate research project to examine how easy each approach was, and to see if the extra attention given to CORBA is deserved.
corba distributed systems annex distributed computing