Book Image

Getting Started with HTML5 WebSocket Programming

By : Vangos Pterneas
Book Image

Getting Started with HTML5 WebSocket Programming

By: Vangos Pterneas

Overview of this book

<p>WebSockets are capable of bi-directional, full-duplex communication over a persistent TCP connection They provide many benefits compared to the alternatives (for example, long-polling or Comet), such as lower overhead, persistent connections, and low latency. In short, it is the most technically challenging HTML5 feature to implement, but for truly interactive websites, it's a technology worth learning.</p> <p>Getting Started with HTML5 WebSocket Programming gives you the true power of bi-directional communication, implemented by using the brand new HTML5 WebSocket API. You’ll learn how to configure the server and clients, how to transmit different types of data and how to secure the whole system.</p> <p>This book will introduce you to the WebSocket world. We start by introducing the WebSocket API, and continue with practical, real-world examples until we can determine how to build multi-functional web apps for any type of device.</p> <p>You will learn how to configure a web client and a web server that will help you send messages to others using easy-to-use mechanisms. We will also find out how different data types, such as images and videos, can be transferred with little effort. We present additional fallback techniques and solutions for older browsers too. Finally, we will secure our clients from malicious attacks and other threats.</p>
Table of Contents (15 chapters)

Why do I need a WebSocket server?


We assume that you have a minor familiarity with servers in general. A server is nothing but a remote computer that has specific hardware and software requirements in order to achieve high availability and up-time, enhanced security, and management of multiple concurrent connections.

A WebSocket server is nothing but a simple program that is able to handle WebSocket events and actions. It usually exposes similar methods to the WebSocket client API and most programming languages provide an implementation. The following diagram illustrates the communication process between a WebSocket server and a WebSocket client, emphasizing the triggered events and actions.

The following diagram shows WebSocket server and client event triggering:

Do not get confused—a WebServer can either run on top of Apache or IIS—or it can be a completely different application by itself.

Considering the hardware, you could use a super-computer or your developer machine as a server. It's...