Advanced Corba(r) Programming with C++

This book is one of the best that I have ever read on CORBA. The authors have wasted no time in explaining OO concepts/C++ and have jumped straight on to the job. This is something that indicates erudition. This book is certainly intended for an expert C++ programmer. I believe this has been done mainly to focus on CORBA rather than C++. All programming examples are well thought out. This is "The Book on CORBA" as Doug Schmidt says in the foreword. Looking forward to the next edition that would cover DSI, DII etc (preferably from the same authors). The word "advanced" in the title is misleading.

I have worked extensively on ORB development, and I can honestly say that this is the only book I have seen that I refer to regularly other than the CORBA spec. It is the only text that is (mostly) current with the spec, and it provides real insights into many frequently asked CORBA questions, such as object reference identity and persistence, memory management, and the POA.Most ORBs don't have the POA yet; they will by mid-2000. It was an important and correct decision by the authors to include it instead of the BOA, most of the details of which are vendor-specific anyway (that's why the POA exists). Note to BOA lovers: sorry, the BOA is no longer part of the spec. ORB vendors are free to keep it around, and many do, but it's only because they're nice. The POA is so vastly superior that the only reason you would use the BOA is if you have an existing code base to maintain.This is not a book for beginners, grazers, or wanna-bes; it is a book for serious, working practitioners, and it works best as a reference (although you can read it cover to cover). It is also C++-specific; it is the best CORBA book available for any language, but programmers who don't know the CORBA interface language mappings in both C++ and another language will not know which parts are C++-specific and may be confused or frustrated. The CORBA C++ mapping is by far the most complex, so it makes sense to do this one, but be forewarned that the early chapters on the C++ language mapping will be of marginal use if you are not a C++ programmer. The POA section makes the POA sound harder than it is for most applications, and does not provide complete detail on POA policies and architecture, but it is close. Your alternative is to read the CORBA spec (a horrifying prospect for most people), or your ORB vendor's documentation (sometimes adequate, sometimes not).Flaws? Yes. Alternatives? No. If you are a CORBA programmer and you don't like reading the CORBA spec, BUY THIS BOOK.

I cannot believe that some people gave such poor review just because they coudln't get it. The book is titled as advanced so it's not supposed to be a book for novices. I don't have much knowledge of CORBA but find this books not so hard to follow. If you know C++ and want to learn CORBA, I think that this is a great book to read.

The book by Michi Henning and Steve Vinosky has hit the market at the right time. There is no other book that describes the programming aspects of Corba in such an elegant manner. In brief, this book is Very good, A must have kind of book, Targeted at intermediate level CORBA programmer (though I feel a beginner can certainly read it as far as that person has some good background in C++) The topic "Advanced programming...." may be a bit misleading because, this book talks much about the basic stuff of CORBA rather than on the advanced, and not frequently used features like DII,DSI etc. I see this book as the one with a very down-to-earth approach that gives a lot of precious details about CORBA programming, rather than some thing that talks about very advanced stuff. IMHO, all that one needs is just a good grasp of C++ inorder to follow this book. The plus points of this book ar: a) The presentation is very clear and focussed b) Explains the nitty-gritty details of CORBA programming c) Describes the latest POA in good detail - infact this book deals only with POA based approach d) Not based on any single vendor's productThere are no negative points as far as I could see. Topics like DII and DSI are not discussed. However, the authors clearly mentioned that they are not discussing DII etc in this book. On the whole, this book is very good and a must for any corba programmer. Well deserves all the five stars in the rating. Hope the authors include the other topics also (like DII,DSI etc) in the future editions

My side of the CORBA equation is all written in Java. Nevertheless, This book has a tremendous amount of information about CORBA that is applicable to any programming language. It provides much detailed information about CORBA itself, the low-level protocol, message structures, object references, IIOP, etc.; more than any of the other major references that I have seen (Orfali & Harkey, Vogel & Duddy). Again, for a Java programmer, this book provides excellent insight into what is really happening beneath the covers (that Java so nicely provides). My peers who are doing C++ CORBA programming also think very highly of this book.