I've been putzing about with Berlin over the last couple of weeks, trying to get a Java client to talk to a Berlin server. I've been hitting bumps of various sizes all the way from installing Debian to building the bits and pieces Berlin depends on, building Berlin, finding a Java IDL compiler that doesn't choke on Berlin's IDL files, finding a Java ORB that works, building the build tool used to build the ORB, building the ORB, hand-slapping generated client stubs into shape, looking under the couch for an IOR to omniORB's name service... None of these is rocket science but they are all essentially 'configuration' work, activation energy you expend before anything interesting can be attempted. It's hard to motivate yourself to sit down and concentrate on swatting away at swarms of annoying little problems, all slightly different. But enough whining. A few minutes ago, I compiled a simple test client and tried to talk to the server.

He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwitch

I was rewarded with a remote reference to the NamingService. All-singing, all-dancing, bytecodespawned, once-written, almosteverywhererun, alphablended, rotated pixels are but a few steps away. 5:46 AM though, bedtime.