Hi All:
I think there is little doubt that all of the Sun assignments can be solved successfully through either a thin or thick client approach (people have been successful using both and thank goodness for that - where would we be if there was a single silver bullet to the project?).
However, I'd like to get everyone's help to catalog the pros and cons of both the thin and thick client approaches in turn (I'll collect as much as I can from previous posts). I'll keep a running list at the bottom of this message and will keep editing it as points are added.
Again, my goal is not to "prove" that one approach is "better" than the other, it is to better understand both solutions and hopefully make an educated guess that suits me and hopefully some other people the best (not to mention write a killer choices.txt to boot

).
As always, please be mindful of the rules of the forum in not discussing too many details of a specific implementation (I think that is in everybody's best interest)...
Note: Please do not be shy about asking anyone to document any claims made about any aspect of the JVM pertinent to this issue. Sockets/RMI seem to be a frequent subject of (mostly unintentional) unsubstantiated claims on various posts that could potentially mislead hundreds of fellow forum members. Fortunately, there are many good sources of documentation on virtually any aspect of the JVM, including books, Sun, JavaWorld, JDJ and Usenet postings.
In the least, producing general purpose code that can be run on a specified platform to prove your point should be easy enough to do.
Please be
very courteous while asking for substatiation. Feel free to refer to this section if it makes things easier. This is a standard practice in scientific and logical discourse and nothing to be ashamed about.
Thanks in advance for your kind participation.
Reza
[ June 07, 2005: Message edited by: Reza Rahman ]