RMI v/s Sockets

Hi All
I would like to know on a performance basis such as maintainability, reliability, ease of debugging, and ease of implementation. What do people like about these two methods of Networking. I know they are often intended to be used in two different types of program, but if you liken them to perform the same task, what are the likes and dislikes??? (Besides dealing with the Obligatory AccessControlExceptions which we all beat our heads against the wall trying to solve on our First RMI attempts :-) ).......................
Let's hear it?

In my book I do this comparison (three-way with CORBA). The basic conclusion is: use sockets for optimal performance if the communications requirements are simple enough that you will not be spending loads of time maintaining your communications infrastructure. Otherwise use RMI or CORBA - RMI is easier but CORBA scales better if you are looking at a large project.

I would like to one more thing. RMI will be useful, if you are having communication between applications written in Java . But if your java application wants to talk to legacy application , you will have to use corba along with your application.
With RMI , you will have thread pooling facility. You will have to open socket for every request. that can be cumbersome.
one more request gbeyela. As part of official naming policy of the site , the user has to register himself / herself with proper first & last name , so I request you to register confirming to official naming policy .
[This message has been edited by shailesh sonavadekar (edited November 09, 2000).]