Re: Websockets on the IBMi

On Jul 11, 2012, at 12:10 PM, "Nathan Andelin" <nandelin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Kevin Turner
The huge benefit of websockets is that you can have a permanent
connection between the client and the server

You can do that with XMLHTTPRequest objects as well. The Apache server supports persistent connections.

There is big difference between a keepalive (apache) and a websocket. A keepalive may die, but a WS remains open except in case of an error and is bi-diectional. Data may come and go as it wants.

and the server can "push" events to the browser,

I've read that from a number of sources on the Web. But I don't think it's true. WebSockets just hides the request-response cycle. TCP/IP is fundamentally a request-response protocol. A server won't push anything to a client without a client requesting it first.

Web sockets are bi directional and do not do polling. You are thinking about comet which is a way of faking it.

rather than the browser having to poll the server periodically.

A push mechanism is far more efficient that a long polling mechanism.

As I already indicated, I think Web Sockets are still polling the server. But it's not apparent.

-Nathan.

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