Topic: comet

[ygfperson]

what do people think about comet? I was just reading about it and it seems interesting, but i don't know if webservers/webmasters like that kind of thing

link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_%28programming%29

[Mike]

interesting idea.  I don't think it'll be a feasible option though until common browsers support it.

[hans]

Um, not to be all pessimistic but if you thought pop-ups were bad, this comet thing seems like it could be horribly misused.

[charlie]

Irrespective of the relative merits of Comet and its uses, I must say I thoroughly enjoy its name. I believe I have been waiting for a web-based technology named Comet ever since I heard about Ajax.

[Perspective]

hmm, think of the security/spam implications of something like that though....

[charlie]

Right now, webpages can request information from the server whenever they want, right? So a pop-up or other annoying action could be taken at any point when you are viewing a webpage, yes? The only difference with this would be that in this case the timing would be server initiated instead of client initiated. From the user's perspective I'd expect there wouldn't be a noticable difference. It's still a webpage requesting information from a server, then processing and displaying that information for the user.

Of course a major difference would be making such intrusive actions easier to implement, so I won't deny that those potential implications are real.

I can see it making things like Gamecasts less network intensive though, perhaps making it easier to do stuff like that over phone networks or whatever, I dunno.

[micah]

I have been waiting for a web-based technology named Comet ever since I heard about Ajax.

LOL, just got that.  whats next? Borax?

I wouldn't worry to much about this being more intrusive then anything thats already out.  I'm sure some loop-holes will be found and then plugged - but it doesn't sound like much worse could be done then what is already possible with JavaScript and AJAX. (which isn't that much other then annoying pop-ups). 

This really is a great solution and logical evolution for Ajax.  The first major problem I found with ajax was the wasted bandwith.  Its ok for an AJAX application to to query the server on requests or even on timed interval, like to check for new mail every minute or so  -- But what about if you want to build something like a chat application used by dozens of people?  The AJAX script has to run like once a second for each user to see if it needs to refresh the screens content. thats just crazy.