Question

I know there is some debate as to whether HTTP is strictly connection-oriented or connectionless. AFAIK, HTTP only maintains a connection long enough to transmit the series of immediate requests. Recently, a microsoft certified architect and I were discussing a method to broadcast updates to a “connected” clients.

Imagine a game of checkers. If player1 makes a move, player2 needs to be notified. With HTTP (no TCP/UDP), the only method I am aware of is to poll. The architect disagreed with me.

So, how can you send updates to “connected” clients using solely HTTP?

Answer 1

There are currently 2 solutions for this:

• WebSockets provide a true callback, but are not widely adopted
• Use a Comet implementation (such as WebSync). This uses polling.