Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!nikhefk!werner From: werner@nikhefk.UUCP (Werner Vogels) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: Are sockets the wave of the future? Message-ID: <773@nikhefk.UUCP> Date: 27 Aug 90 19:46:34 GMT References: <9008242107.AA19843@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <1990Aug25.183437.1@rogue.llnl.gov> Sender: werner@nikhefk.uucp (Werner Vogels) Reply-To: werner@nikhefk.UUCP (Werner Vogels) Organization: Nikhef-K, Amsterdam (the Netherlands). Lines: 36 In article hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) writes: >Sun RPC is proprietary? (1) RFC 1057 documents the spec. (2) I'm >reasonably sure that they posted an implementation of RPC to the >network some time ago, and later on a revised version. I'm still not >sure I'd write applications intended to be portable using it, but they >may be right. The advantage is that you could move to ISO or anything >else by changing the lower layers, and the application would not be >affected. I get the impression this is the reason they made that >recommendation. Don't think you can move to OSI by just "changing a few layers". There is a lot of layer specific information crossing layer boundaries so if you view RPC as session and XDR as presentation layer there is a lot the be changed. You should read the last part of M.T. Rose's The Open Book on this subject. Sun's RPC isn't the only RPC mechanisme in the world. See the current ACM SIGOP issue for a comparison of about 10 of them. Sun has the advantage that all the NFS implementers had to use SUN RPC to be interconnectable. And when it's there why not use it for other things as well??? But this doen't mean it has been chosen by the network community as being the best possible interface for writing client/server software. (for those who think SUN invented remote procedure calls, it was there before SUN was born, developed, as many amazing things, by XEROX PARC) I hate to say it, but if you want a really safe bet, use sockets. Every system will have a socket libary hanging around for the next ten years. Werner H.P. Vogels Software Expertise Centrum Haagse Hogeschool, Intersector Informatica tel: +31 70 618419 Louis Couperusplein 2-19, 2514 HP Den Haag E-mail: werner@nikhefk.nikhef.nl The Netherlands or werner@hhinsi.uucp