.NET remoting and singletons

[ASB]

sounds like using activator just seems to work and new is a bit of a mess, I guess that what you (M$) get for butchering the new keyword... I think I prefer spring remoting as it doesn't even involve any code just a few lines of config! more of java thing though

Yep. I think that's my conclusion really. Though of course one of the ideas behind remoting is that it is supposed to be invisible to a consumer. It isn't. I can make it so by producing my own proxys but at this rate there will be too many levels of indirection and IPC over a named pipe before any code get executed anywhere. Come back COM RPC all is forgiven (maybe).

[DSW]

Come back COM RPC all is forgiven (maybe).

no, no, I'm not forgiving it! COM was a bit mixed, the coolest project I remember working on with it was written in VB and had a separate front end server, middle tier (COM+) and finally a db server. You generated the proxies from COM+ manager on the middle tier and got an MSI which you ran on anywhere. very cool. However I also remember the deployment instructions, I think they were at least 10 pages long

As for the transparent code, this is one of the reasons why spring is so cool. Working on my plan b and I have modular components frontend, business stuff, dal etc and by changing the profile I build the frontend with I can change how it talks to the business tier. The idea is I can then put a thick client on a well as a web one.