[For Java/networking geeks only.]
I have these two Java programs, talking through an ordinary TCP/IP socket.
The client sends a (medium-sized) serialized object to the server, which does
a little
bit of computation and acknowledges by sending a (small) object back.
Straight writeObject()
/readObject()
calls with
setTcpNoDelay(true)
in effect.
When both of them are running on my 1.25Ghz PowerBook here, the latency
required for the whole transaction is like 190msec, which is
horrible.
So I moved the server code down to the mouldy old P300 Debian box in
the basement, talking to it over two or three legs of WiFi and Ethernet
switches, and the latency dropped to around 33msec; still not great, but the
difference is instructive.