Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture, Volume 2, Patterns for Concurrent and Networked Objects

Foreword

Middleware is the set of services, protocols, and support utilities providing the ‘plumbing’ that makes modern distributed systems and applications possible—the infrastructure that underlies web services, distributed objects, collaborative applications, e-commerce systems, and other important platforms. Not long ago, the term middleware was rarely heard, and middleware developers were rarer still. But over the past decade, the term, the research and practice, and its impact have become ubiquitous. Yet, until now, there has not been a book describing how to construct networked and concurrent object-oriented (OO) middleware, so its design has remained something of a black art. This book demystifies middleware construction, replacing the need to have an expert looking over your shoulder with well-reasoned, empirically-guided accounts of common design problems, forces, successful solutions, and consequences.

As is true for most concepts, nailing down the boundaries of middleware is hard. Conventionally, it consists of the software needed to build systems and applications, yet is not otherwise an intrinsic part of an operating system kernel. But it is not always possible to find middleware where you first look for it: middleware can appear in libraries and frameworks, operating systems and their add-ons, Java virtual machines and other run-time systems, large-grained software components, and in portions of end-products such as web services themselves.

This book is not a textbook ...