How RMI, CORBA and REST APIs are related?

RMI, CORBA, REST — Relation & Evolution (Brief)

What is common in RMI, CORBA, REST?

All are for communication between distributed systems (client ↔ server)

• Call functionality on remote machines
• Exchange data over network
• Hide network complexity from developers

Quick Comparison

Technology	Style	Key Idea
RMI (Java)	Object-based	Call Java methods remotely
CORBA	Language-independent object	Call objects across different languages
REST APIs	Resource-based (HTTP)	Access resources via URLs (GET/POST)

Is this evolution of Technology stack?

Yes — This is clear evolution of distributed systems.

1. RMI → Java-only, tightly coupled
2. CORBA → Multi-language but complex
3. REST → Simple, lightweight, web-friendly (current standard)

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Core Shift Over Time

• Transition from “Object calls” → ✅ Resource-based APIs
• Transition from “Tight coupling” → ✅ Loose coupling
• Transition from “Complex protocols” → ✅ HTTP + JSON simplicity

In short

RMI, CORBA, REST all solve remote communication, but evolved from complex object calls → simple web APIs.