Re: [HACKERS] CORBA STATUS

Mark Proctor wrote:

> I'm currently studying for a Masters at BrunelUniversity, London. I
> was looking for a thesis andsince I had an interest inOpensource
> development anddatabases I thought that I would like to work onPGsql.
> As I also had an interest in trying tounderstand CORBA and other
> related technologies itmade sense that I try and work on a project
> that tiesPGsql and CORBA together in some way.
>
> Marc G. Fournier and Bruce Momjian were contacted withregards to this
> and they seemed to think that therewas room for me to work on this,
> although at thisstage I hadn't gone through the mailing list.
>
> since then I've finally got PGsql up and working andI'm now embarking
> on understand how to system actualworks. I thought a good place to
> start with myresearch would be to go through the mailing lists totry
> and see the current status for development in thisarea. I did this for
> several hours trying to get thecurrent take on CORBA with regards to
> PGsql. It seemsthere was a lot of initial talk back in Nov 1998 onthe
> hackers list with the first thoughts of some sortof CORBA
> implementation. The conversation orientatedover 2 main areas; which
> ORB and implementationmethods, with some peoples offering to work on
> this.It was then suggested that the converstaion take placein the
> interfaces mailing list. I've since been oversome of this but find it
> very difficult to understandthe current status with regards to PGsql
> and CORBA.I've seen many references to people who have developed
> a project that allows them to work with PGsql viaCORBA, but non of
> this seems to be part of the mainproject or system. There is some
> reference to Micheal Robinsonworking on an implementation but again
> I'm not surehow this fits
> in-http://www.postgresql.org/mhonarc/pgsql-interfaces/1998-11/msg00090.html
>
> Is there room for me to work on this project in such away that it is
> adequate for my masters. If anyone isworking on this, or has a good
> knowledge of thecurrent status of the CORBA implementation for
> PGsqlcan you please let me know, so I can know whether toget started
> on this or not. The reference thread formy initial point of contact
> with Marc G. Fournier andBruce Momjian and how they think I should
> attack theproject is
> -http://www.postgresql.org/mhonarc/pgsql-hackers/1999-09/msg00076.html
>
> Regards
>
> Mark Proctor
> email : m(dot)proctor(at)bigfoot(dot)com

Dear Mark,

as this reply stuck between my brain and my fingers for two weeks now,
it might come too late.
But Corba defines a Facility (or a Service) to access object oriented
databases via a standardized interface. Since Postgres is an OORDBMS
(there is a definitely shorter abbreviation), it might suit it well to
offer such an interface. I never looked too deep into the standard
document but if you are interested, I'll look up the exact location.

Since this does not interfere with Postgres' internals it should be much
easier to do. And since a redesign (for speed) of the backend interface
would not provide new features, I would suggest taking a look into this
area.

IMHO the Corba specs should get more attention. I really like these
standardization efforts, though they rarely affect everyday (free)
programming environments.

Regards
Christof
(which was tempted to implement them some month ago but decided to
build actual programs on now-available and (to me) well known technology
(ecpg driven Corba objects)).