Is “long polling” the most efficient way to create a Web Real Time App?

Question

I want to create an application like this:

http://collabedit.com/

What is the most efficient way to create this real time application?

Flash? Long pollin

Answer 1

For now, long polling is probably the best solution. Many big-name sites have long polling implementations, including Facebook, Google and eBay. Not everyone has Flash installed/enabled in their browsers. In the future Web Sockets might be able to do an easier job of it for us.

Update: As of this writing, the WebSocket API is implemented in the latest WebKit (Chrome/Safari) and Firefox 4 beta. There is also a public snapshot build of Opera available for download with an implementation of the API. This means testing the API is widely available. For more information, see this answer.