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Build Comet applications using Scala, Lift, and jQuery

Creating the e-commerce Auction Net site

Michael Galpin, Developer, eBay
Galpin Michael photo
Michael Galpin has been developing Web applications since the late 90's. He holds a degree in mathematics from the California Institute of Technology and is an architect at eBay in San Jose, CA.

Summary:  Web applications have gotten more and more advanced, and users are always expecting more out of them. One of the most advanced features is Comet, also known as reverse Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) or server-side push. Comet allows for browser-based instant messaging, real-time stock quotes, and so on. Advanced Ajax libraries, such as jQuery, make it easy to write Comet applications on the client side, but getting them to scale on the server is still a challenge. That is where the Scala programming language and the Lift Web application framework can step in and deliver a scalable back end for your Comet application. In this tutorial, build a real-time Web auction using these technologies.

Date:  24 Mar 2009
Level:  Intermediate
PDF:  A4 and Letter (152 KB | 21 pages)Get Adobe® Reader®

Activity:  12396 views
Comments:  

Before you start

This tutorial is for developers interested in writing Comet-style Web applications. A basic knowledge of Web applications and Ajax interactions is useful. Lift is written in the Scala programming language, which runs on top of the Java™ Virtual Machine. Prior knowledge of Scala is not necessary, but experience with Java is certainly useful. You will see some sophisticated Scala in this article, so familiarity with a functional programming language like Haskell, OCaml, or Lisp helps as well. You will also use the jQuery JavaScript library. None of the JavaScript is that advanced, so familiarity with basic JavaScript is sufficient.

About this tutorial

Alex Russell first coined the term Comet in a blog entry back in 2006. He defined Comet as event-driven, where the server has an open line of communication to push data to the client (see Resources to read the blog entry).

In this tutorial, you will develop a Comet-style Web application called Auction Net using Scala, Lift, and jQuery. You start by going over the design of the application that you will be building in this tutorial. After you know what you want to build, you will break it down into various parts and learn how you can leverage the features of Lift to implement these features.

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Prerequisites

To develop with Lift and run the sample code, you will need the following tools:

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TutorialTitle=Build Comet applications using Scala, Lift, and jQuery
publish-date=03242009
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