Re: java serialization alternative

A dissenting view

Theres a lot of mythology arpound Java Serialization. The fact of the
matter is that, for
the kind of system it is, if you need all it capabilities, its about as
effecieint as anything
else your likely to build.  Provided you use it right.  We use Java
serialization in Darkstar
and get object accesses, which inbclused both
serialization/deserialization and databsase acess)
in the low tenths of ms.  (Thats tenths, not tens.)

It is very easy to over-serialize by not properly pruning your object
graph.  You need to
be actively aware of what data you are really trying to communicate and
make efective use
of Transient fields to trim the graph.

Keep in mind that you can use Java serialization and take control of the
actual representations
of individual objects if you wish at multiple levels (the most extreme
case being using Externalizable
to take total control threof.)

IMO the question you reallu need tpo ask is, is object level
communication really what you want?  if
all you are doing is pushing well known messages around then a byte
packet protocol is always going to
be more efficient and is trivial to implement in Java,

A *sperate* question you need to ask is if RMI is appropriate.  RMI is a
synchronous protocol.  It blocks until
the foreign call completes.  This means you are paying 2-way latency
costs for each call and making your code
synchronous where aynchronicity might be more efficient.

FInally, you strtaed all this with "I suspect that..."  Why do you
suspect that? Have you actually profiled
and mesured costs?  If not then this counts as premature optimization
asn is likely as not a total waste of time.

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