At what point is it better to switch from java.net to java.nio? .net (not the Microsoft entity) is easier to understand and more familiar, while nio is scalable, and comes with some extra nifty features.
Specifically, I need to make a choice for this situation: We have one control center managing hardware at several remote sites (each site with one computer managing multiple hardware units (a transceiver, TNC, and rotator)). My idea was to have write a sever app on each machine that acts as a gateway from the control center to the radio hardware, with one socket for each unit. From my understanding, NIO is meant for one server, many clients, but what I’m thinking of is one client, many servers.
I suppose a third option is to use MINA, but I’m not sure if that’s throwing too much at a simple problem.
Each remote server will have up to 8 connections, all from the same client (to control all the hardware, and separate TX/RX sockets). The single client will want to connect to several servers at once, though. Instead of putting each server on different ports, is it possible to use channel selectors on the client side, or is it better to go multi-threaded io on the client side of things and configure the servers differently?
Actually, since the remote machines serve only to interact with other hardware, would RMI or IDL/CORBA be a better solution? Really, I just want to be able to send commands and receive telemetry from the hardware, and not have to make up some application layer protocol to do it.
Scalability will probably drive your choice of package. java.net will require one thread per socket. Coding it will be significantly easier. java.nio is much more efficient, but can be hairy to code around.
I would ask yourself how many connections you expect to be handling. If it’s relatively few (say, < 100), I’d go with java.net.