[Demexp-dev] Design consideration: should I use SUN RPC?

[David MENTRE]

Hello,

In the current DemExp server and client, I'm using the network encoding
of SUN RPC (Remote Procedure Call). However, I do not use the RPC
mechanism itself and I've redone most of the network side of
RPC. I followed this design because I wanted to have (1) non blocking
calls from the client and (2) to handle several clients in the same
server.

However, I've just re-read Gerd Stolpman's SUN RPC ocaml package
documentation and realized that with his code, it is possible to
implement have both (1) and (2). So I'm *strongly* considering to drop
the current network code (sigh, yet another code to erase) and
reimplement it with Gerd's code. What do you think of it?

The main advantage (and a big one) of SUN RPC is that it is very easy to
add new network calls.

The possible drawbacks are:

 - yet another programming delay (but it will become much easier to
   extend both client and server latter);

 - erase a big part of previous work (but we will have a cleaner
   design);

 - dependency on other packages (findlib (exists as debian package),
   enqueue and the whole rpc package);

 - possible incompatibility with lablgtk (to check);

 - possible incompatibility with C version of RPC (to check).


In short, I'm considering fixing a months old design error.

I'm waiting for your opinion.

Yours,
d.
-- 
 David Mentré <address@hidden>