Pure CORBA

CORBA Objects and Object References

There is a complementary relationship between CORBA objects and object references. A CORBA object is the entity that provides the implementation of the object and does the work. An object reference is the entity that knows where to find a CORBA object and delegates work to the CORBA object. Object references effectively provide a window to a CORBA object.

Because CORBA objects do the real work of an invocation, you might be inclined to think of them as more concrete than object references. In fact, the reverse is the case. The portable object adapter (POA) does not even define entities that correspond to CORBA objects (see Chapter 7, “The Portable Object Adapter.”).

The OMG recognized that there is no need ...