[e-lang] E research topics

[James Graves]

David Chizmadia (JHU) wrote:

> 2. EBASS (E-Based Application Server System)
> 
> Goal:
>     Develop an E application server framework (like J2EE or the
> CORBA Component Model) that provides an infrastructure for deploying
> general-purpose E services, while orthogonally managing and
> enforcing organization security policies using object capability
> patterns.
> 
> Unique Research Contributions:
>  a. Intrinsically secure application server system
>  b. Early (first?) large-scale E (object capability) application
>  c. Worked example of applying object capability patterns to the
>     design of a large distributed system
> 
> Relationship to interests:
>   * Distributed systems
>   * Networks & security

I second this one.  Though I'm not a fan of either J2EE or CORBA.  I can 
go into more detail about why for each of these, but the short, short 
version:

	J2EE: The words "horrible" and "bloated" come to mind.
	Allegedly some of this is supposed to be fixed in 3.0.

	CORBA: Failed in the marketplace for several reasons including
	brittle interfaces.

So what is a good application server framework?

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Actually, just trying to write a large-ish real world application will 
likely illuminate some significant issues with how E is going to work in 
practice.

So what would be a good large-scale app for E anyway?  How about a 
version of Second Life that works in a more distributed manner.  Instead 
of relying on just centralized servers, spread the processing and 
storage of objects to all the end-user machines instead.

James