Guideline for using .NET Remoting Framework?

[JohnnyWaffles]

I am building an application that will use .NET Remoting to send data from one application to another. The data is 3D coordinate information that I am taking from a 3D modeling application and sending it to some other 3D rendering software that will update in real time as you change the source model. Essentially a bridge between 3D modeling applications that will update in real time based on user input.

I am a novice though and there are some complications that I am not sure how to handle.

One being that both application APIs are in two different programming languages. One language is C++, which is what the server will be developed in. The second language is Python, which is what the Client will be developed in (the application that will send the data based on user events). How do you write code to handle processing in each program with two different languages? Do you compile two different DLLs (one for each programming language) and simply call them from the main module when needed?

The second issue is security and performance; could there be any stability or security issues I should be aware of from the onset by utilizing a Remoting Framework to pass data to and from different application domains? I suppose for stability and performance the main issue may be the amount of data you are handling within the framework. How much data do you think is too much?

Thanks for any help and advice you guys can provide.

 

[PlausiblyDamp]

In the scenario you outlined do the two exiting applications (the C++ and the Python one) already have a planned and defined way of connecting to them? If so the way you connect to them is already defined, if this isn't currently planned and that is what you are looking at then you may find .Net remoting isn't the best approach to solving the problem facing you.

Before going any further is there any mechanism in place for these two applications to communicate with third party applications? Is there any reason that you need to introduce a 3rd programming language and runtime into the solution?

 

[JohnnyWaffles]

Well there are only 2 applications in play here (3 if you consider the one I am trying to develop). One application being Autodesks Maya which has an API in Python (the Client). The other application is a game engine which has an API in C++ (the Server). Fortunately the game engine is open source and the code is available on Github, so I should be able to edit the code to set up a server to accept input from Maya (I hope).

I hope I didn't confuse anybody anymore, but that is specifically what I want to do. As far as I know there are no other options or mechanisms in place to making this sort of connection happen.

Anyway, what do you guys think, is remoting still a good option?

 

[PlausiblyDamp]

If there is already an API for communicating with each of these two applications it might be easier enough to write an application that just talks directly to both, unless you need to creating your own applications that communicate over the network then there is no real reason to go the remoting route.

Quite frankly even if you did need to write network aware applications I would stil tend to avoid remoting as a solution.

 

[JohnnyWaffles]

Hmm, yea I guess you are right. I guess I don't really need to use remoting if the applications have there own respective APIs. By the way, are there better networking options besides remoting? Just in case I decide to go that route?

 

[PlausiblyDamp]

Remoting can be a lot of work to get up and running while leaving you to handle an awful lot of stuff (object lifetime, leases etc) as well as being very tied into .Net.

A more open system is WCF, although that might be overkill for a simple situation. If you are just wanting to make a simple, callable network service then something like WebAPI might be a lot easier.

At the end of the day though the decision would really need to be made based on exactly what you wanted to do.