Networking on the Robot

[JML]

Hello,

How does everyone do networking on their robot. Specifically for Java and/or C++, but Lab View is applicable as well. Does everyone tend to use the Network tables libraries and program, and on top of that, how efficient are network tables, Would using just a socket work better or more efficiently? I was leaning towards using sockets for any custom communication with our co-processor this year, but I wanted to check what others thought about this, and since I don't have access to a robo-RIO right now, i cant do research on my own.

Thanks