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If realtime messaging is a new and cool thing, what were chat rooms back in the day? not realtime? Am I missing something? I don't remember needing reloading th

If realtime messaging is a new and cool thing, what were chat rooms back in the day? not realtime? Am I missing something? I don't remember needing reloading those pages... All that aside, this is amazing.

ceejayoz 14y ago
A lot of those used a periodically refreshing frame or something similar.
delinka 14y ago
I don't necessarily think they intend "realtime messaging" to be the focus here. We've had obvious IM for years and it didn't exactly lull as far as I know. Definitely cool that someone hacked around to learn the details about some bit of tech to make it do something it wasn't built for. I applaud this attitude. That said, it seems that since the "digital revolution" we go through these re-inventions of basic ideas and tools quite frequently. We've had "email" since the time multiple people could use a computer; recently, I commented on HN about how someone reinvented server log analysis tools to find click fraud (they were outsourcing analytics and apparently were unaware that web server logs ever existed.)
wallunit 14y ago
Chat rooms 10 years ago weren't using web standards like HTML, GIF and Javascript. They were writing either in Java or in Flash. However MSIE6 also supports XmlHttpRequest (though an Active-X Control), which you can also use for real-time communication. Just setup a XmlHttpRequest and let the request idle on the server-side until new data become available.
- WickyNilliams 14y ago
  Wouldn't that lock up a thread, per request? Things would quickly grind to a halt I'm sure
  - GeneralMaximus 14y ago
    Depends on your web server. AFAIK, nginx uses a combination of events and threads to handle a ginormous number of simultaneous connections. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_I/O http://www.slideshare.net/joshzhu/nginx-internals http://www.aosabook.org/en/nginx.html http://serverfault.com/questions/86674/why-is-nginx-so-fast Also, Node.js. Edit: formatting.
  - wallunit 14y ago
    Only if your server code process each request in a separate thread. But that's also true, when using web-sockets or when using the GIF approach. When implementing real-time applications, you always have to write non-blocking asynchronous server code, for example using node.js or Twisted.

ceejayoz 14y ago

A lot of those used a periodically refreshing frame or something similar.

delinka 14y ago

I don't necessarily think they intend "realtime messaging" to be the focus here. We've had obvious IM for years and it didn't exactly lull as far as I know. Definitely cool that someone hacked around to learn the details about some bit of tech to make it do something it wasn't built for. I applaud this attitude. That said, it seems that since the "digital revolution" we go through these re-inventions of basic ideas and tools quite frequently. We've had "email" since the time multiple people could use a computer; recently, I commented on HN about how someone reinvented server log analysis tools to find click fraud (they were outsourcing analytics and apparently were unaware that web server logs ever existed.)

wallunit 14y ago

Chat rooms 10 years ago weren't using web standards like HTML, GIF and Javascript. They were writing either in Java or in Flash. However MSIE6 also supports XmlHttpRequest (though an Active-X Control), which you can also use for real-time communication. Just setup a XmlHttpRequest and let the request idle on the server-side until new data become available.

WickyNilliams 14y ago
Wouldn't that lock up a thread, per request? Things would quickly grind to a halt I'm sure
- GeneralMaximus 14y ago
  Depends on your web server. AFAIK, nginx uses a combination of events and threads to handle a ginormous number of simultaneous connections. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_I/O http://www.slideshare.net/joshzhu/nginx-internals http://www.aosabook.org/en/nginx.html http://serverfault.com/questions/86674/why-is-nginx-so-fast Also, Node.js. Edit: formatting.
- wallunit 14y ago
  Only if your server code process each request in a separate thread. But that's also true, when using web-sockets or when using the GIF approach. When implementing real-time applications, you always have to write non-blocking asynchronous server code, for example using node.js or Twisted.