GNU EDMA

GNU EDMA provides an Object Oriented Component-Based development environment to build modular and evolving applications as well as highly reusable components. To achieve this, GNU EDMA shares features of OO programming languages and component based systems in a loosely coupled environment.

News

• November 2005:: CVS Releaseses upto Beta 0.15.7 Rev 7. The main changes are listed below:
  • Misc.
    Package available at alpha.gnu.org
    Tutorial directory updated
    More Bug Fixes and Code cleanup
    
• August 2004:: CVS Releases up to Beta 0.15.3. The main changes are listed below:
  • Multithread Support for Execution Stack.
    
  • Added Thread related functions.
    Including mutex, TSD and more.
    
  • Misc.
    Class RUNNABLE fixed
    More Bug Fixes and Code cleanup
    
• March 2004:: CVS Releases up to Beta 0.15.2. The main changes are listed below:
  • Per-Process Component Version Selection.
    
  • Misc.
    More Bug Fixes and Code cleanup
    
• November 2003:: CVS Releases up to Beta 0.13.2. The main changes are listed below:
  • Misc.
    More Bug Fixes and Code cleanup
    
• June/July 2003:: CVS Releases up to Beta 0.11.5. The main features are listed below:
  • Dynamic SIU Proxies.
    Added Functions to dynamically attach/detach SIU Proxies to objects
  • Low-Level Method Invocation.
    Added function to allow direct access to class methods. This interface will allow developers to improve performance in critical parts of their applications.
  • Dynamic Invocation Interface.
    Added support to dynamically build object requests. This interface will provide a standard and type-safe way to invoke methods at the same time it provides a method invocation interface for strong-typing environments (like Java).
  • New Primitives for Type-Safe Property access.
    The new API provides type-safe property access, so compilers can type check GNU/EDMA code.
  • Misc.
    More examples and Documentation added.
    More Bug Fixes and Code Cleanup.
    
• First Quarter 2003:: CVS Releases upto Beta 0.11.3. The main changes are listed below:
  • Cloning Primitives. Shallow/Deep cloning working.
  • MULTI_SERIALIZER Class. This class serializes compound objects.
  • Internal Structures Changed. Object and Class internal structures have changed.
  • Unit Tests. First Unit tests added (work in progress).
  • Run-Time Class Definition. Added run-time class definition functions.
  • Many bug fixes.
• September, 2002:: CVS Release Beta 0.9.4. The main changes are listed below:
  • Multiversion Classes. Now you can install various versions of the same component, even while applications are running.
  • New SERIALIZER Class. A serialization class was added.
  • New Tools. New tool for rapid development of multithreaded servers.
  • Misc. Bug fixes and minor updates on system classes.
• May, 2002:: Released Beta 0.9.3. The main changes are listed below:
  • API Change. Now functions are named edma_XXX following GNU code standards. New functions have been added.
  • NameSpace. Added basic support for namespaces. Now components can be installed in different directories.
  • Exceptions. Added rudimentary exception support. Still in early development stage.
  • Misc. A lot of bug fixes, graphical tools updated, heavy code clean up.

• May 2002 :: Web Pages at GNU finally updated.

GNU EDMA's main features

• OO Component-based Environment:

  Seamlessly mixes component-based and Object Oriented programming models. Components can be managed as classes (the same way that in any OO programming languages), or on an interface basis, as other component systems do.

• Dynamic OO features:

  All common OO features (inheritance, virtual method override,...) that you can find in any programming language can be done dynamically. Object's inheritance hierarchy can be changed dynamically making it easier to build dynamically reconfigurable and evolvable applications.

• Classes or Objects:

  You can choose between your preferred OO flavor for developing your application.

  • Destructive Subclassing as in C++ or Java where superclass behaviors can be completely rewritten by subclasses
  • Conservative Subclassing as in Beta/gBeta where superclass behaviors can be only extended.
  • Prototype-Based as in Self where parents are shared classes and object prototypes are cloned.

• Loosely-Coupled Architecture:

  GNU/EDMA OOP features are implemented on a loosely-coupled basis which provides a clear separation between the analysis/design and implementation stages.

  This approach allows the implementation of OO models even using non-OO programming languages and to use features not supported by the underlying environment (e.g. you can use multiple implementation inheritance in Java when working with GNU/EDMA components).

• Reflection:

  Full reflection API. Dynamically extract any information about your classes and objects.

  The reflection API along with the string-based object access interface makes Object Automation and the development of Visual tools trivial.

• Fully Extendable:

  Developed in C. Built-in sub-systems to extend internal functionalities.

  • SIU Subsystem allows to change the default behavior of the GNU/EDMA primitives. Its main target is integration of external systems.
  • IngrIDF Subsystem allows custom interface definition language parsers.
  • EMI Subsystem allows handling of exceptional situations in the system. At the moment it only can be used to build custom component/class loaders.

Open Tasks and Help Wanted

• Beta Testing:

  Deep testing of the system on different environments is required ...

• Foundation Classes:

  Basic class hierarchy to deal with common tasks. OS interface, data structs,...

• Programming Language Support and Scripting:

  Classes to allow development of GNU/EDMA components and applications using other languages than C.
  Main target is Guile. Perl (in progress), Python (in progress), Ruby and Java are other desired targets.

  These classes will also allow to access GNU/EDMA core from those programming language as well as use them as scripting language on any GNU/EDMA application.

• System Integration:

  One of the most important objectives of GNU/EDMA is to provide a common reuse framework, so integration of other technologies is one of the pursued targets.

  • CORBA integration. Requires a DII/DSI aware ORB in order to exploit GNU/EDMA dynamic features
  • Component Models. It would be interesting to make GNU/EDMA work with current available component models (XPCOM, Bonobo, Qt Component Model, UNO,...) so they can be easily reused in a common fashion.

• GNU Project:

  Integration with other GNU projects.

  • GNUStep
  • GNOME. Including Bonobo and ORBit
  • Guile as scripting language for GNU/EDMA applications

• Documentation:

  Project documentation requires review by native english speakers.

• Propose your project

Download

GNU EDMA is still in development. Previous stable version are now obsolete.

Development version is Beta 0.15.7 Rev. 7. Donwload
Latest Sources available at Savannah CVS.

Documentation

• Tutorials:
  • Building GNU/EDMA Applications. (.texi): Describes how to build simple applications using GNU/EDMA.
  • Building GNU/EDMA Components. (.texi): Describes how to build GNU/EDMA components.
  • GNU/EDMA for C/C++ Developers (.txt): Easy introduction to GNU/EDMA for C/C++ Developers explaining the simplest uses of the system
• Other
  • GNU/EDMA User Reference Manual (.txt): Still incomplete
  • GNU/EDMA FAQ (.html)

Mailing Lists

There are three mailing lists about GNU EDMA. Visit Savannah for information about them.

Acknowledgements

Danny Yee helped me with the first version of this page.
Laura Rodríguez González made some other comments.
Richard Stallman for pointing me to Danny Yee
Russel Reed for the first translations of the GNU/EDMA documentation.
Bev Corwin, Randal Shepard, Sabrina Mix for translating the old Installation Guide to English.
David Currie helped me with this current page.

Please send FSF & GNU inquiries & questions to gnu@gnu.org. There are also other ways to contact the FSF.

Please send comments on these web pages to webmasters@www.gnu.org, send other questions to gnu@gnu.org.

Copyright (C) 1998, 2001,2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

Updated: $Date: 2005/11/05 12:08:34 $ $Author: dmartin $