C++ Network Programming, Volume I: Mastering Complexity with ACE and Patterns

A prerequisite to performing any job well is knowing how to use your tools effectively. Many useful tools can hurt you if misused. Although no one's been hit over the head by a UNIX pipe or socket, the time and resources wasted on unnecessary development and debugging has certainly cost lots of money, caused premature hair loss, and put a damper on many social lives. Moreover, unlike tools such as wrenches and hammers, learning to use low-level tools on one platform may not help when you port your networked applications to a new platform.

Software developers building networked applications must master the concepts and tools associated with interprocess communication (IPC). This chapter presented the Socket API. It discussed the range of capabilities this ubiquitous API provides, as well as its associated set of accidental complexities. One short program illustrated the range of errors commonly made as a result of these complexities. The next chapter shows how ACE applies C++ features and the Wrapper Facade [SSRB00] pattern to resolve them.