[ros-users] ROS & DDS

[Michael Zillich]

Hi,

my two cents regarding this discussion come from experiences with 
another "industry-standard" middleware, that was somewhat ... complex 
internally and thus typically was hidden under layers of convenience 
code: the abominable CORBA.
(I ended up writing my own middleware after CORBA nearly killed a project)

I have to admit I know nothing about DDS, so forgive me if I unjustly 
critizise it. But reading in some of the ongoing discussions that its 
complexity can easily be handled by some abstraction layer .. that rang 
an alarm bell.

If something is too complex to use for the intended target audience of 
developers, and thus has to be hidden behind another layer (which, trust 
me, inevitably leads to the most hilarious bugs you can possibly 
imagine) then it is probably the wrong technology for that application 
area. (But there are certainly other appliction areas where this 
middleware is the perfect choice).

So my personal choice is always a clear and simple solution targeted at 
a specific application area (with specific requirements, problems, and 
development procedures and cycles) rather than a 
solves-all-and-everyones-problems solution developled by large committees.

cheers,
Michael

p.s. For those interested in the CORBA story read the enlightening 
article by Michi Henning
   https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1142044
who as one of the authors of "Advanced CORBA Programming with C++" is 
probably one of the only two persons on the planet, who actually 
understood CORBA (the other person being Steve Vinoski, the other author 
of the book).

-- 
Dr. Michael Zillich
ACIN Institute of Automation and Control
Vienna University of Technology
(DVR-Number 0005886)
Gusshausstr 27-29/E376, 1040 Vienna, Austria
zillich at acin.tuwien.ac.at	http://users.acin.tuwien.ac.at/mzillich
Tel: +43 1 58801 376648		Fax: +43 1 58801 37698