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An Asynchronous Comet Server for Django

Posted 3 months, 4 weeks ago at 7:38 pm. 3 comments

I’ve been hearing a lot about Comet recently. Comet is essentially a type of AJAX which works by having the server constantly sending data to the browser, rather than having the browser constantly polling the server for more data. Things like Gmail’s Chat functionality and Meebo are perfect examples of Comet-like technology. The main difference between AJAX and Comet applications is that Comet applications deliver data to the browser any time, whereas AJAX applications require user input (for example a small refresh icon).

I stumbled upon an awesome Asynchronous Comet server for Django today, called django-evserver. The video shows two different browsers showing a chat log, where each browser automatically shows new messages when the other submits data. Pretty cool stuff, and seeing this running with Django is totally awesome. Note to self: This is all related somehow to WSGI, which is something I definitely need to get my tiny brain wrapped around. I’ve heard lots about WSGI and know of a few things which are beneficial to me regarding it, but don’t know too much about it.

Hopefully I’ll work on a project one of these days that can utilize technology like this. +1 for Django!

Check out the blog post here, which contains a video demonstrating the technology.