[JDEV] UDP vs TCP

[Peter Donald]

At 02:12  1/9/00 -0400, you wrote:
>It is true that for a long-lived connection, you have the chance of buffers
>sitting empty for TCP connections, and being a substantial draw on system
>resources. However, many systems (I can only assume Solaris, but know linux
>as of 2.4) don't do this - they have a shared buffer space for all TCP
>connections in the kernel.

Okay I checked this out with some people I consider with it and your right.
TCP is getting a lot more efficient - thou not quite as efficient as UDP it
is narrowing the boundary for lossless comms. I was told bluntly that in 2
years UDP would be relatively worthless for lossless services and so I
guess I should not do a UDP transport =)

There is a few other advantages especially with respect to low latency over
relatively error free connections and TCP at the moment is only protocol
that has compression between modem users and server. 

I can't honestly see *any* use for UDP in the future. I'm glad I posted
here before I wasted time implementing it :P. While UDP may still be more
efficient on some platforms linux is my target and thus my main concern and
it is going to be very hard to beat it given some of the optimisations that
will/have taken place.





Cheers,

Pete

*------------------------------------------------------*
| "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want |
| to test a man's character, give him power."          |
|       -Abraham Lincoln                               |
*------------------------------------------------------*