Program over LAN

Question

If you're making a program that will allow a few programs that are distributed on different computers over a LAN to communicate with each other, from a developer's point of view is this more similar to programming locally, or programming over HTTP?
What things should one be aware of when programming in a LAN environment? In your experience, how is it similar to and different from programming locally and programming over HTTP?
What are the options in terms of how the programs could communicate: are RMI, EJB, and Sockets all viable options, or are some of these not valid for LANs?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Thanks for your response.
Does that mean you can ignore the fact that the
computers are over a LAN, and just program like a
regular application? Program yes. Design no.
That same program could then be
used either over a LAN or over the Internet, with no
changes to the code? Yes.
>
Perhaps I should try to clarify my confusion: If
there are programs that you want to be able to
communicate with each other, and they are distributed
across many computers, what is the difference (from a
programming point of view) whether those computers
are located on a LAN, or whether they are not on the
same network (LAN, WAN, etc) but are all hooked up to
the Internet?No difference.
When you have your program connect to a socket on a server on a LAN, a WAN or something internety makes no difference to your program code. None.
There are of course important design considerations.
1) Security. With properly maintained firewalls the computers on a LAN cannot be accessed from outside the LAN.
2) Performance. LAN performance is better than internet performance. A LAN offers shorter physical differences but more importantly greater speeds and much greater bandwidth throughput.
So yes you should keep those two points in mind when you design how your application works.
But if you write code to connect to a socket on a LAN it will work the same way if you point it at a machine that is not on your LAN.