[Zope3-dev] Re: Zope 3 lacks Ajax capability?

[Jeff Rush]

Fred Drake wrote:
> On 5/15/06, Jeff Rush <jeff at taupro.com> wrote:
> 
>> I got the definition from Wikipedia:
>>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX
> 
> Yes; we agree on this definition of AJAX, I think.  :-)

Sorry, I was addressing what I erroneously thought was confusion over what the 
'A' meant.


> This is where we get a disconnect.  I've certainly never heard that
> AJAX specifically requires a server thread to remain dedicated to a
> particular client.

A newbie assumption on my part, that it was the only way for server -> client 
messages.  Apparently it is just an alternate approach for some situations.


> This is fundamentally unscalable, and
> architecturally fragile at best.

Now that's odd, because to me having 1,000 clients repeatedly poll the server 
every second, and potentially tearing down/making new TCP connections is less 
scalable than on a modern OS keeping around 1,000 threads or twisted 
'deferreds' on a persistent HTTP connection.  But certainly this approach, 
called "Comet" is not for high-traffic mass sites.


> Several of us at Zope Corp. have created AJAXian interfaces with Zope
> on the server side, so I think it's safe to say Zope can do this just
> fine.  The TCP connection itself, however, isn't so precious as you
> indicate; the ordinary HTTP request/response model is the foundation
> for AJAX services, and works just fine with Zope.

Thanks for setting me straight as I delve into Ajax, which differs from 
LivePage in details apparently.  I'm glad to hear that Zope3 can handle it 
fine and will tack in a different direction for what I want to do.

-Jeff