For all students to read:

Since we are not expliciting covering technology advances in the lectures or projects, here are a few more readings in this spirit:

• Complexity management: A major issue for communications
• What is CORBA? This briefly describes an important new middleware technology that isolates distributed applications from the underlying operating systems, networks, and languages.
• What is Java? and The Java Saga. Learn here how another important new technology got started. Very different history than CORBA, but arguably more successful.

Optional:

• You can do some browsing around the Object Management Group homepage to get the sense of both the CORBA standard, and also an organization that sets standards. Can an organization whose membership includes more than 700 software companies possibly be effective?
• Similarly, browse around the JavaSoft homepage. This is a very different model for standards: de facto. Java is promulgated by SUN Microsystems, which works hard to line up support from other software companies and offers attractive licensing agreements.