Allow a better real-time communication medium

[GoogleCodeExporter]

If a proper real-time communication medium were added (such as WebSockets or 
raw socket access) real-time multiplayer games would be more viable.

Another option for real-time communication is to allow Net calls to 
progressively read incoming data without having to close the request (this 
would allow Comet-like connections.)

Original issue reported on code.google.com by nightexcessive on 9 Mar 2012 at 11:51

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I've started doing some research in to this and the primary limitation right 
now, it appears, is the browser. Java, of course, can do all kinds of 
networking, same with Android. The browser has web sockets, but there's nothing 
like a high-speed UDP connection for web sockets, and you can't make direct 
peer-to-peer connections - you need a server. Any sort of abstraction for playn 
would have to take this in to account. It could still be done, it just would 
have some severe enough limitations that a Quake-esk networking system would be 
impossible.

Original comment by e...@theribbles.org on 16 Mar 2012 at 3:54

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Even just WebSockets would be a huge step. I'm absolutely certain you can do 
WebSockets on all of the supported platforms except iOS; I haven't got any idea 
about iOS. Granted, some browsers don't support WebSockets.

Original comment by nightexcessive on 16 Mar 2012 at 3:58

[GoogleCodeExporter]

We could do WebSockets on iOS. It supports all the same low-level socket I/O 
that Android and desktop Java support. I'll put it on the "wishlist" section of 
the roadmap.

Original comment by m...@samskivert.com on 16 Mar 2012 at 4:00

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Oh look, it's already there.

Original comment by m...@samskivert.com on 16 Mar 2012 at 4:01