Networking is not an integral part of the language, but it IS a significant part of the core run-time library. IOW: Any platform that supports Java also supports HTTP and sockets (UDP/TCP) out of the box. In addition, these protocols are SOOO easy to use (a lot simpler than winsock for example).

Java for implementing a server? No reason not to - it won't be much different from implementing it in C (except for the built-in HTTP support, which might be hard to come by for a C app). There's (obviously) a slight performance penalty, but I doubt if it'll ever turn into a problem.

You might want to get a good Java book - they all discuss both threading and networking in detail. (Avoid the big fat 1200 page ones, since they're essentially transcripts of the language spec, stuffed with useless repetition, figures and lousy code samples).

/Niels

Are there any samples anywhere that demonstrate one? Even just a simple chat server that can echo the message sent to the server, to all the other clients.

I have Learn Java Now, It came with J++ 1.0, yet it doesnt cover threading/networking.

-Dan

But there should be tons of network code samples out there.

/Niels

I was wondering if anyone here has ever written a server in Java.

I'd appreciate if you could give me a list of sites of any sites (Or maybe even some sample code) with information on java, specifically its network and threading functions.

Thanks.

Dan
dans@3dgamedev.com

The key is the amount of latency the game can handle before becomming unplayable. Obviously fast-paced action games such as Quake requires very low ping to be playable. Strategy games (even real-time), though, are much less subject to network latency.

I'll soon open a site with an on-line RTS game that uses HTTP (it's currently in alpha).

/Niels