CORBA
CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) is a middleware standard developed by the Object Management Group (OMG) that enables software components written in different programming languages and running on different operating systems to communicate with each other. It provides a framework for distributed object-oriented systems, allowing objects to make requests and receive responses transparently across a network. CORBA uses an Interface Definition Language (IDL) to define interfaces and an Object Request Broker (ORB) to handle communication between objects.
Developers should learn CORBA when working on legacy enterprise systems, particularly in finance, telecommunications, or government sectors where interoperability between heterogeneous systems is critical. It is useful for building distributed applications that require language and platform independence, such as in large-scale integration projects or when maintaining older systems that rely on CORBA-based communication. However, it is less relevant for modern greenfield projects, as newer technologies like gRPC or REST APIs have largely superseded it.