Non Java Based Server

Question

Is there a possibility that a MIDlet can communicate with a Server which is not written using Java? If yes then how? I thought about the following solution:
Develop a MIDlet which uses Sockets(as sockets are Java's implementaation of TCP/IP) to connect to specific URL on a specific port. Develop a Server in some other language like C++ may be which listen on that particular port. As the protocol will be TCP/IP so both can communicate easily.
What do you say about this?

Answer 1

With sockets you send raw data back and forth, over a protocol like TCP/IP for example. And http is a higher level protocol, where on top you need to conform to the messaging protocol, like request methods (GET,POST), http headers, etc. (complete into on the http protocol can be found at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt).
The main difference though is that with http you are limited to a request-response style communication, where the client (your MIDlet) requests information from the server and the server can only respond to your client's requests and can't actively send data (without receiving a request first), whereas with sockets both server and client can send and receive data. This means that, for example, an online game based on http would need to poll the server for updates constantly to see if the other player has made a move, opening a new connection every time. A socket based game would only open two connections, one to send data and one to receive (maybe even only one send-receive connection), and use these connections throughout the game sending and receiving from both client and server as you wish. So sockets would be preferable except that in MIDP they are not officially supported so for compatibility your better off (and might have no choice even) with http.
To implement a C++ server you would need to make a server that constantly listens to a specified port (the default http port is 80), and parses the requests it receives and replies appropiately (with a valid http response). But there are many available web-servers that can already do the listening and parsing for you (Apache, IIS, etc.) and you only need to then implement the construction of the response so I don't think it would be the way to go.
shmoove