Networking a lot of stuff, what is the best way? Is caching useless?

[leeroy___]

Hello everyone

I am trying to optimize my networking code and make it smooth and clean but I don't really know what method is the best one in this case.
I am currently sending a table full of variables from the server to the client, and I have around 10 different variables that I want to send. I don't want the client to be able to touch these variables hence why I am not defining them on the shared realm. ( assuming that clients can run client-sided scripts on their own )

Example of what I am doing:
-- server example
function SendVarsToClient(pl)
local dt = {}
dt.money = pl.money --
dt.money2 = pl.money2
dt.c_money = config.startmoney
--- and so on
-- Do keep in mind that this table holds about 10 variables
-- Also I am not sending everything in the "config" table nor
-- everything that the player has since I only need some of the
-- variables and not all. And it is about 10 variables

net.Start("someuniquenetworkstring")
net.WriteTable(dt)
net.Send(pl)
end

-- client example
net.Receive( "someuniquenetworkstring", function(len, pl)
local dt = net.ReadTable()
-- then I open a derma thingie that displays all of it
end)
Is this a good method for sending a lot of variables to the client? Or should I just make the variables shared? But wouldn't that be a security risk?
Do note that I only send these variables ones ( the "SendVarsToClient" function isn't called in a loop or something ).

Now when I run the "SendVarsToClient" again I wouldn't want to send the same variables if they have the same value/contents. Instead I could cache all the variables on the client and keep a memory on the server of what it sent and then compare the new data table with the old and exclude those variables who have the same value/contents.

Example:
-- shitty server example
function SendVarsToClient(pl)
local dt = {}
dt.money = pl.money --
dt.money2 = pl.money2
dt.c_money = config.startmoney
--- and 10 more variables...
pl.dt = dt -- keep a record of what was sent and to whom
if( pl.count == nil ) then pl.count = 1 else pl.count = pl.count + 1 end -- keep record of how many times
if( pl.count > 1 ) then -- dont want to check the cache if this is the first time
-- then remove the variables that hasn't changed
for k, v in pairs( dt ) do -- loop through all of the variables
for k2, v2 in pairs(table.GetKeys(pl.dt)) do
if( k == k2 ) then -- check if they already exist in the record
if( v == v2 ) then table.remove( dt, k ) end -- check if they have the same value; if so remove
end
end
end
end

net.Start("someuniquenetworkstring")
net.WriteTable(dt)
net.Send(pl)
end

-- client example
net.Receive( "someuniquenetworkstring", function(len, pl)
local dt = net.ReadTable()
client_stuff = client_stuff or {}
client_stuff.cache = table.Merge( client_stuff.cache, dt ) -- update the updated variables
-- example of what it does:
-- v1 = 1 | nv1 = 1
-- v2 = 5 | nv2 = 2 -- and it would update only this variable ( v2 ) so it would be equal to 2
-- v3 = 7 | nv3 = 7 -- the others stay the same
--- then use the data ...
end)
The above code is a quick example that I wrote ( might not even work haven't tested it ) but would I benefit from caching stuff or is it just a waste of process time?
Any ideas or suggestions?

[The_HAVOK]

are the variables inside the tables all integers? or could they have other datatypes?

[leeroy___]

They have other datatypes