Which uses less memory?

[bret.wortman at gmail.com]

I'm not sure if this is as easy a question as I'd like it to be, but
here goes....

I'm working on an application that is very memory intensive, so we're
trying to reduce the memory footprint of classes wherever possible.  I
have a need for a class which is able to have a type identifier which
can be examined at run-time to determine whether that class (called
Domain) contains data I care about or not.

I've thought of two ways to implement this:

1.  Add a type attribute and set it to a descriptive string.
2.  Create marker classes and use multiple inheritance to "attach"
these markers to specific Domains.

Here's the kicker:  I need to serialize these Domains and send them to/
from Java code as well as work on them using Python.  We're looking to
use Hessian and pyactivemq to handle the Java/Python interfaces.
Which, I guess, leads to the following group of questions:

1.  Which method has the smaller footprint within the Python engine?
2.  Do these protocols (Hessian and Stomp) preserve the class
information when the class is serialized?

Any input would be most welcome.  Thanks!


Bret Wortman