From: Aidan <ahumphreys@...>
Date: 2002-06-06T17:42:30+09:00
Subject: DRb, Rinda and Jini

I've been experimenting with DRb and Rinda recently - a beautifully 
elegant distributed computing model. English documentation is a scarce 
resource though - a section each in Hal's book and the Developer's 
guide. Does anyone know of other substantial resources? I see from 
Masatoshi Seki's site that there is a book available in Japan on DRb, 
are there any plans to translate it?

Cards on the table, when it comes to distributed systems,I'm a Jini fan. 
Jini offers a similarly elegant implementation of OO parallel 
distributed computing, using similar techniques (both JavaSpaces and 
Rinda are based on David Gelerntner's Linda system). Yes, Jini is not 
just for Toasters.

When comparing basic DRb and Jini, we see that Jini offers some extra's 
- a distributed notification system, the leasing concept, transactions, 
coordinated multiple JavaSpaces, OO pattern matching in the space, a 
name service, a multi-casting location service and some commercial 
enterprise scale implementations ( intramission, gigaspaces ...)

The downside to Jini is that Sun have more or less sidelined it 
(reputedly so as not to hurt their big hit - J2EE)

An open set of questions:
Is anyone else interested in the subject?
Could we start a mailing list to collect information on the subject? 
Would any Japanese/English bi-lingual readers bring the group up to 
date on the status of DRb?
Is anyone interested in implementing some of the "missing components" 
above (if indeed they are missing)?
How could DRb be made language independent?

Aidan