| Steve's Networked Programming Newsletter
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Making Nets Work
September
2008
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Thank you for subscribing to my newsletter. If you've
been wondering where the August issue is, it was buried
under a pile of work, and is now gone like the New
England summer. So I'm starting fresh with
September.
This month I have some updates regarding Apache Qpid
and we begin a discussion of your favorite networked
programming tools.
As always, be sure to forward this note to other
people you work with to be sure they know what's
happening in the world of networked application
development.
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What's Your Favorite Networked
Programming Tool?
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Writing networked applications
(at least, good ones) is difficult. C++NPv1
elaborates on some of the reasons that the job is hard
to do correctly including inherent and accidental
complexity. Writing networked applications directly to
low-level APIs is definitely "doing it the hard way."
(There's a white paper
at www.riverace.com that explains the most common
mistakes.)
To help develop networked applications
more easily and with fewer errors, a number of tools
have been developed over the years. They target
different problem areas, levels of abstraction, and
programming languages. In the past few issues we've
discussed, in various levels of detail, three such
tools: ACE, Apache
Qpid, and Boost asio.
Some others that get a lot of press are .NET, TAO, and Ice.
I'd like to use the next few
issues of this column to discuss your favorite tools. If
you have a few minutes, could you please reply
to me and tell me:
- What kind of systems or applications you build?
- What your primary challenges are in terms of the
networked aspects of your systems?
- What tool(s) you like, what OS and language(s) you
prefer, and why?
Also, please let me know if
it's ok to include some of your comments in future
newsletters. Let's get our heads together and help each
other develop better networked
applications!
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Steve Huston Approved as Apache
Qpid Committer
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I mentioned Apache Qpid in the January and
March
newsletters. It's a project in the incubation phase in
the Apache Software
Foundation that implements the Advanced
Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP). I've implemented
message queuing systems using ACE for a few customers in
the past, and was contracted to do another one, so was
very interested to learn of this effort. It has great
backing and an enthusiastic development and management
team behind it. I've been getting more involved in this,
porting the C++ implementation to Windows.
The
Apache way of handling code contributions is very
different from what I've been accustomed to working on
ACE. There are a relatively small number of approved
"committers" who can commit source code to the
repository. All other contributions must be attached to
a bug/enhancement request with the agreement that such
code is being donated to Apache. A committer must then
review, approve, and integrate the supplied
patch.
I'm very pleased and honored to have been
nominated and approved as a Qpid committer. This will
certainly make it easier to integrate the changes for
Windows that I'm involved with.
If you have any
questions about message queuing or about Apache Qpid,
please contact me! I'd be very happy to chat about
it.
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| Do You Need Help Designing Your
Next System? |
Nobody has to tell you that
designing a well-formed, efficient, maintainable
networked application is hard. You've had to deal with
it. The problem is that networking functionality is
usually in a supporting role to your system's main
purposes, and your skills and experience are much better
used to focus on specific business and technology
issues. It may make more sense to bring in seasoned
expertise to help design a solid networking base in your
next system.
I've helped many companies get great
networked applications built - I may be able to help you
as well. Let's talk and see if I can help take care of
the networking, and let you focus on applying your
expertise and experience to the business features
that'll really help your system stand out.
Call
me at 508-541-9180 or email me at shuston@riverace.com.
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If you have any ideas for areas of networked
programming you'd like to hear about in future issues,
please email me with your suggestions. In the meantime,
keep those nets working!
Sincerely,
Steve Huston
Riverace
Corporation
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