Is it worth utilizing a Comet for events that do not require real-time updates, but can have a delay of around 1 minute? Examples could include:
- updates on Twitter statuses
- notifications on Facebook
While Comet is commonly used in chat applications (such as Facebook and GTalk chats), is it also employed by platforms like Twitter?
Alternatively, would AJAX-polling be sufficient for these types of updates? Here are a few reasons why it might suffice:
- With a polling interval of 1 minute, the server is not overwhelmed with AJAX requests.
- The scenario of "no new data" is less common compared to chat applications.
- No server threads are tied up, allowing them to be shared among multiple clients. For example, a thread pool of 100 threads may be utilized by 200 clients instead of just 100 when using Comet. However, this may vary based on the technology being used - for Java, refer to this article for details on intelligent thread reuse)
(Note: In this context, "comet" refers to maintaining an open connection. Some may mistakenly consider AJAX-polling as comet as well, hence the clarification - ajax-polling != comet in the above question)