[ILUG] OT RPC / SOAP / XML / .NET and J2ee was ( RPC between Windoze and Linux )

[Justin Mason]

"Treanor, Ciaran" said:

> Although it wasn't a fair comparison it is worth remembering that
> performance of current EJB server/container implementation ain't
> stellar. Assuming the mess that is CMP2.0, Dependent Value Objects, JDO
> etc. can be stabilised in the near future that app server vendors can
> start to focus on performance.

Wotcher Ciaran!  I see you've thoroughly joined the EJB dark side ;)

My personal take on SOAP and XML-RPC is that they're a good thing,
in that they allow simple RPC over a firewall-supported protocol,
which has been needed for a long time.

But designing apps that'll use RPC over the internet is a pretty new
concept; web-apps generally have to enforce a certain user-interface, that
works well with potentially huge latency.  But RPC (esp. in an RMI, DCOM
or CORBA transparent style) is *too* easy -- which, if not used carefully,
results in apps that suddenly mysteriously hang while they talk to some
server in the US ;)

I prefer *knowing* that some particular API may take 20 seconds to
complete, whereas this other API will complete in under 100ms.  That's the
danger of network transparency -- that and Leslie Lamport's definition of
a distributed system: "You know you have one when the crash of a computer
you've never heard of stops you from getting any work done." 

--j.