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Ever since the seminal work ``The Mythical Man
Month'' [2], many people have advocated that the only
way to produce quality software is by employing exploratory
methodologies such as prototyping (Brookes' famous ``build one to
throw away''). Prototyping not only provides greater opportunity
for end-user feedback than traditional ``build and deliver''
approaches, but also allows system architects and developers to
experiment with critical design decisions before they really do
become critical! In fact, when attempting to build complex systems,
prototyping is arguably the only way to discover the subtle and
often unexpected interactions between components.
Designing and deploying distributed systems is a complex problem and
while CORBA goes some way to managing this complexity, the most
commonly used language mappings, C++ and Java, are not simple enough
to allow the rapid development of system prototypes, command
scripts, and test harnesses etc. This is exactly where Python and
Fnorb come in! Anecdotal evidence [3] suggests that, in
terms of code size, Python programs are 3-10 shorter than C++ and
3-5 times shorter than Java. The language mapping from OMG IDL to
Python maintains this advantage by allowing programmers to use
familiar language data structures and idioms with minimal
concessions to the notion of object distribution.
According to a recent SunWorld article [4]
Python is now considered one of the ``big three'' scripting
languages along with TCL and Perl. Compared with its rivals Python
is easier to learn and is (much!) easier to read and maintain. The
combination of Python and Fnorb provides the existing CORBA
community with a much needed tool for rapid prototyping and
scripting, and gives those new to CORBA a great way to learn the
fundamental concepts without being swamped by the intricacies of a
`heavyweight' language mapping.
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Previous: 1.2 What is Python?
http://www.fnorb.com/
March 2000