Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Ralph Lange <[email protected]> · Wed, 27 Jul 2005 17:44:28 +0200

Marty Kraimer wrote:

[...]

Like CORBA ICE defines a language (Slice - Specification Language for

ICE) and compilers that generate source files for several languages:

C++, Java, C#, Visual Basic, and Python.

The Basic Slice types are: bool, byte, short, int, long, float,

double, string

In addition it provides enum, struct, sequence, and dictionary.

[...]
Question: Why don't we just use ICE for communications for EPICS V4?

We could provide Slice definitions for everything we want predefined

and allow Dynamic Invocation for everything else.

One of the central goals of DataAccess was to avoid declaring predefined

types in a special language that is used to generate source code. The

idea was to have user defined compound types that client and server

agree on at connection time (not at compile time) and that still get

transported as effectively as predefined types during runtime.

See the paper that Jeff was presenting at the ICALEPCS 2001

(http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.ni/0111026) for a discussion of the underlying

ideas.

Help me: What were the reasons for not using CORBA for EPICS?
Why do none of these reasons apply to ICE?

Just curious what's behind this 180 degree turn, that seems just a bit

all-too-sudden to me....

Ralph