What do I need to know in order to write a web application in python?

[Paul Rubin]

ErichCart ErichCart <erichcart at gmail.com> writes:
> By real-time, I mean that I want it to be similar to the way instant
> online chess works. Something like here: instantchess.com, but for
> RISK.

If you want to do that in a web browser, the main technique for it is
called AJAX and you'd write your application in Javascript.  There are
some good libraries including jquery that can help.  A little bit of web
surfing about AJAX and Jquery can find you more info.  Another approach
is as a desktop GUI app with its own socket communications layer, but
that way seems to be going out of style as AJAX has gotten more
powerful.  Finally you can write in Actionscript which runs in the
browser's Flash plug-in.  I guess this is also popular (lots of Facebook
games use it) but I put it last because I hate Flash.