PART III
Chapter 10: Web Services and Beyond 515
occurring events, this approach is quite inefficient and is completely unworkable for
approaches that need a real-time or near real-time connection. The Comet communications
pattern changes this by keeping a connection open between the browser and server so that
the server can stream or push messages to the browser at will, as shown in Figure 10-8.NNOT EOTE Comet is not an acronym and appears to be a somewhat tongue-in-cheek cleaner-related
moniker given to a collection of server-push approaches being used. The introduction of the term
is attributed to Alex Russell of Dojo Toolkit fame around March 2006. The implication of how
this pattern was implemented, coupled with dislike of the expression, has led others to introduce
a variety of other terms of similar meaning for commercial or personal reasons, much to the
confusion of developers and Ajax book authors alike.FIGURE 10-7 Plumbing Web 2.0 with pipes