2005/5/10

     
 

History of ACDK

artefaktur

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Description about the history of ACDK.


Content of this chapter:

   Background
   Version History
     MMLib
     Maja
     ACDK



 Background

In the 90s Roger Rene Kommer (it's me) in corporation with Micromata GmbH developing software solutions for material handling system using C++, C, Perl and Tcl on Solaris machines.
The focus of these software starts with (near-real time) controlling robot hardware and ends with connections to (beyond any time) enterprise data warehouse systems like SAP.

Technical Requirements:
  • Threading / distributed computing
  • Near- realtime for controlling hundreds of hardware components.
  • 365 days, 24 hours availability
  • SQL
  • SAP
  • Support of may protocols: TCP/IP, Profibus, Serial, Wireless terminals, OSI, CORBA, etc.
  • Integration of Scripting languages.
  • Has to run on multiple platforms

Soft Requirements:
  • Has to be managed by average programmer.
  • Implementation has to be in a narrow time frame.
  • Errors should be avoided by library design.
  • Good logging/tracing/debugging features.

Because the available technologies didn't match these requirements (including Java), we decided to develop an C++ library, which provides a framework to make development in system/enterprice integration area easier, faster, cheaper and more reliable.

I decided to use Java as model, because it has many advantages in the development process.

 Version History


 MMLib

The first version of ACDK was a in house development of the Micromata Objects GmbH in 1999 with a focus on an ODBC SQL and SAP RFC implementation.

In this time I designed and implemented the core of ACDK.
Contributions are developed by Wolfang Jung and Maximilian.

 Maja

1999 much money was on the market to be invested in young companies with a good product.
We made a business plan with ACDK (called Maja) as core technology. But at the end of 1999 we to stop searching an investor, because the conditions to develop and market such a product with venture capital doesn't fit to our idea of a technology company.

Unfortunately the project business with material handling systems didn't develop as we expected, so we liquidate the company Micromata Object GmbH at the end of the year 1999.
Contributions are developed by Juergen Baumann, Wolfgang Jung, Achim Brelle and Mauro Niro.

We implemented also an Application server for distributed marketing ('Atrax'). The clients was implemented with Java. Contributions are developed by Kai Reinhard and Tung Ngo.

 ACDK

I renamed library to ACDK, Artefaktur Component Development Kit. Artefaktur is my consultant company.

Because I have no intention to make money directly with ACDK, I published ACDK as open source (LGPL).
Beside my consultant business (for several german large companies) I constantly working on ACDK in my spare time.