So the CORBA IDL to do a lot of this already exists and has for almost 6 years. This could be translated into other technology if people would decide to doit. It also already exists in UML and is fairly easily mapped to other technology. XML-RPC is not the likely technology based on the actions of industry. It can be mapped to WSDL automatically, although that isn't the most desirable.
Unfortunately, not too many people have chosen to implement the CORBA API even though there are several open source examples of it. Dave > ------------Original Message------------ > From: Horst Herb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Tue, Jun-8-2004 4:10 AM > Subject: Re: medical systems framework > > On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 09:58, Andrew Ho wrote: > > Publishing an API is not sufficient. We also need adequate tools to create > > modules that use the API. > > In a framework for modules as I propose it, you agree on someplatform and > language RPC mechanism. XML-RPC would fit the bill, except for the lack of > standardized authentication in the protocol definition. CORBA would fit the > bill but can be a bit painful to implement. > > The API you publish is the name of the callable functions, their parameters > and return values. Doesn't really matter whether it is a formal machine > interpretable definition (like the CORBA IDL) or just documentation on a web > site. Of course it is sufficient to interoperate to have such published API - > once we agree on using it, everything else is easy. > > Horst > >
