Fastest way to share data objects between Java server and C # client
What's the fastest way to share data structures between Java and C #? I want something where I can literally send a "car" object or a "foo" object and it will be serialized and deserialized on both the server and client.
WSDL (SOAP) is pretty interchangeable. If you want something less colloquial, something like Google's "protocol buffers", "ICE" (ZeroC), etc. Offer interchangeable binary serialization and code generation.
For .NET / C #, there are currently two viable protocol buffer implementations here ; protosharp is essentially inactive and incomplete) - either will be fine, but neither has a complete RPC package, so you'll have to handle the message passing yourself.
You might be able to use IKVM, it's a Java-like framework on top of .NET; you can use Java serialization in IKVM and use interop to consume objects from "regular" .NET languages.
It looks like IKVM seems like a good idea. But if it doesn't suit your needs, especially since it's still in development. However, Uri's post points you in a good direction using xml and passing messages that can be combined on both sides.
Can you use the SOAP web service on the server and can the client use the web service? The object's data structure will be described in the WSDL for the web service.