SocketStream
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A talk given at Node.js Cambridge about SocketStream, a realtime framework for single page apps. https://socketstream.com
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SocketStream
- 2. A web framework for single page apps
- 3. Created by Owen Barnes @temporalwave ! ! (my boss at a former company)
- 4. About me Paul Jensen @paulbjensen ! ! (I’m the new lead developer)
- 7. With a traditional web app, the user has to refresh the page to see new information
- 12. I wonder what the latest score is… Let’s reload the page Client Server Time
- 14. HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified Client Server Time
- 16. The user had to press F5 to get at any new information Client Server Time
- 17. Client Server Time Even though there was no new information, the server still had to serve the HTTP request
- 18. This is not a fun experience
- 19. How do we make this better?
- 21. We could use AJAX to update the page
- 22. We’d save the user having to press the F5 key
- 23. What else can we do?
- 26. GZIP the response data, and …
- 27. Avoid sending data we already have on the client
- 28. We could also separate the HTML from the data
- 29. Reuse the HTML on the client
- 30. …and use the server to provide you with just data
- 31. And the web site becomes a client Web App Native App Server API User
- 32. The server is just an API
- 33. A beautiful separation of concerns
- 34. Overview • The server becomes a REST API serving JSON • HTML compilation is done on the client • As a result, less processing & bandwidth is consumed by the server
- 35. Why Realtime?
- 37. Polling the server every [n] seconds for new data is redundant
- 38. There has to be a better way
- 39. What if the server could send its client(s) new data as soon as it came about?
- 40. We can, thanks to WebSockets
- 41. WebSockets allows data to be sent both ways
- 44. The server sends a message to the client that an action has occurred Client Server Time Goal
- 45. We eliminate the need to poll the server for new data
- 46. Overview • We can replace AJAX polling with WebSockets, and provide a better user experience as a result • We also remove the need to make redundant polling requests back to the server. • We use WebSockets for sending/receiving JSON
- 47. Single Page Apps + The Realtime Web
- 48. There are many ways to build this kind of app
- 49. You could build it mostly from scratch, and use Express + Socket.io
- 50. Or alternatively, you could use a web framework like Meteor or Firebase
- 51. SocketStream is somewhere in-between these 2 approaches
- 52. It provides tools to help with building realtime single page apps...
- 53. ... Whilst trying not to restrict what technologies you can use with your app
- 54. For example, we don't provide an ORM. Instead, you choose the database & the ORM
- 55. Also, we don't mandate using a specific client-side framework ! You can use BackBone, Angular, Ember, or something else, that is entirely your choice.
- 56. What we focus on instead are these things:
- 57. HTML / CSS / JS code preprocessing Minifying CSS/JS for production use Client-side code organisation HTML Templates WebSocket Management Live Reload Building RPC APIs Building PubSub APIs Session Management Building custom APIs on top of WS Web Workers Connect middleware compatibility
- 58. I'll run through each of these, 1-by-1. But first, let's look at how to use SocketStream
- 59. Getting started npm install -g socketstream ! socketstream new my_app
- 60. Getting started ! ! ! ! Success! Created app 'my_app' with: ✓ Basic chat demo (-m for minimal install) ✓ Javascript example code (-c if you prefer CoffeeScript) ✓ Plain HTML for views (-j if you prefer Jade) Next, run the following commands: cd my_app [sudo] npm install To start your app: node app.js
- 61. Here's what the initial file/ folder structure looks like
- 62. HTML / CSS / JS code preprocessing Minifying CSS/JS for production use Client-side code organisation HTML Templates WebSocket Management Live Reload Building RPC APIs Building PubSub APIs Session Management Building custom APIs on top of WS Web Workers Connect middleware compatibility
- 63. Client code is organised into 5 sub-folders
- 64. Client side code organisation • CODE stores client side JavaScript files and libraries • CSS stores CSS files • STATIC stores public files like images, font files, and other assets • TEMPLATES stores HTML templates for the single page app to render on the client • VIEWS stores HTML files that are rendered from the server for the initial page
- 65. Those sub-folders have subfolders, but are optional
- 66. This is how we load them // My SocketStream 0.3 app ! var http = require('http'), ss = require('socketstream'); ! // Define a single-page client called 'main' ss.client.define('main', { view: 'app.html', css: ['libs/reset.css', 'app.styl'], code: ['libs/jquery.min.js', 'app'], tmpl: '*' }); ! // Serve this client on the root URL ss.http.route('/', function(req, res){ res.serveClient('main'); });
- 67. // My SocketStream 0.3 app ! var http = require('http'), ss = require('socketstream'); ! // Define a single-page client called 'main' ss.client.define('main', { view: 'app.html', css: ['libs/reset.css', 'app.styl'], code: ['libs/jquery.min.js', 'app'], tmpl: '*' }); ! // Serve this client on the root URL ss.http.route('/', function(req, res){ res.serveClient('main'); });
- 68. // My SocketStream 0.3 app ! var http = require('http'), ss = require('socketstream'); ! // Define a single-page client called 'main' ss.client.define('main', { view: 'app.html', css: ['libs/reset.css', 'app.styl'], code: ['libs/jquery.min.js', 'app'], tmpl: '*' }); ! // Serve this client on the root URL ss.http.route('/', function(req, res){ res.serveClient('main'); });
- 69. // My SocketStream 0.3 app ! var http = require('http'), ss = require('socketstream'); ! // Define a single-page client called 'main' ss.client.define('main', { view: 'app.html', css: ['libs/reset.css', 'app.styl'], code: ['libs/jquery.min.js', 'app'], tmpl: '*' }); ! // Serve this client on the root URL ss.http.route('/', function(req, res){ res.serveClient('main'); });
- 70. // My SocketStream 0.3 app ! var http = require('http'), ss = require('socketstream'); ! // Define a single-page client called 'main' ss.client.define('main', { view: 'app.html', css: ['libs/reset.css', 'app.styl'], code: ['libs/jquery.min.js', 'app'], tmpl: '*' }); ! // Serve this client on the root URL ss.http.route('/', function(req, res){ res.serveClient('main'); });
- 71. // My SocketStream 0.3 app ! var http = require('http'), ss = require('socketstream'); ! // Define a single-page client called 'main' ss.client.define('main', { view: 'app.html', css: ['libs/reset.css', 'app.styl'], code: ['libs/jquery.min.js', 'app'], tmpl: '*' }); ! // Serve this client on the root URL ss.http.route('/', function(req, res){ res.serveClient('main'); });
- 72. // My SocketStream 0.3 app ! var http = require('http'), ss = require('socketstream'); ! // Define a single-page client called 'main' ss.client.define('main', { view: 'app.html', css: ['libs/reset.css', 'app.styl'], code: ['libs/jquery.min.js', 'app'], tmpl: '*' }); ! // Serve this client on the root URL ss.http.route('/', function(req, res){ res.serveClient('main'); });
- 73. SocketStream uses Browserify to handle requiring JS files
- 74. Browserify allows us to use a Node.js style of requiring JS files
- 75. // This file automatically gets called first by SocketStream and must always exist ! // Make 'ss' available to all modules and the browser console window.ss = require('socketstream'); ! ss.server.on('disconnect', function(){ console.log('Connection down :-('); }); ! ss.server.on('reconnect', function(){ console.log('Connection back up :-)'); }); ! ss.server.on('ready', function(){ ! ! ! // Wait for the DOM to finish loading jQuery(function(){ // Load app require('/app'); }); });
- 76. // This file automatically gets called first by SocketStream and must always exist ! // Make 'ss' available to all modules and the browser console window.ss = require('socketstream'); ! ss.server.on('disconnect', function(){ console.log('Connection down :-('); }); ! ss.server.on('reconnect', function(){ console.log('Connection back up :-)'); }); ! ss.server.on('ready', function(){ ! ! ! // Wait for the DOM to finish loading jQuery(function(){ // Load app require('/app'); }); });
- 77. HTML / CSS / JS code preprocessing Minifying CSS/JS for production use Client-side code organisation HTML Templates WebSocket Management Live Reload Building RPC APIs Building PubSub APIs Session Management Building custom APIs on top of WS Web Workers Connect middleware compatibility
- 78. Over the years, developers have come up with new languages to generate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- 79. SocketStream allows developers to use these code preprocessors in their apps
- 80. Adding a preprocessor is simple // Code Formatters ss.client.formatters.add(require('ss-stylus'));
- 81. For Javascript • SS-COFFEE - supports using CoffeeScript • SS-GORILLA - supports using GorillaScript
- 82. For CSS • SS-STYLUS - supports using Stylus • SS-LESS - supports using Less
- 83. For HTML Views • SS-JADE - supports using Jade
- 84. For HTML Templating • SS-HOGAN - supports using Twitter's Hogan.js • SS-COFFEEKUP - supports using CoffeeKup
- 85. Setting a Templating engine // Use server-side compiled Hogan (Mustache) templates. Others engines available ss.client.templateEngine.use(require('ss-hogan'));
- 86. HTML / CSS / JS code preprocessing Minifying CSS/JS for production use Client-side code organisation HTML Templates WebSocket Management Live Reload Building RPC APIs Building PubSub APIs Session Management Building custom APIs on top of WS Web Workers Connect middleware compatibility
- 87. Having to press F5 to reload the page in order to view changes to HTML/CSS/JS...
- 88. ... is not a fun experience
- 89. In development mode, SocketStream will watch the client files for changes, and reload the page when they occur
- 90. In the case of CSS, SocketStream will apply the changes without reloading the page
- 91. HTML / CSS / JS code preprocessing Minifying CSS/JS for production use Client-side code organisation HTML Templates WebSocket Management Live Reload Building RPC APIs Building PubSub APIs Session Management Building custom APIs on top of WS Web Workers Connect middleware compatibility
- 92. Client-side HTML templates are made available to the browser via the ss.tmpl object
- 94. HTML / CSS / JS code preprocessing Minifying CSS/JS for production use Client-side code organisation HTML Templates WebSocket Management Live Reload Building RPC APIs Building PubSub APIs Session Management Building custom APIs on top of WS Web Workers Connect middleware compatibility
- 95. When you're building a single page app, you'll have a lot of JS files, and maybe a few CSS files
- 96. But serving a HTML page with lots of these files can take time, and is inefficient
- 97. SocketStream provides a way to concatenate, minify, and GZip these files into 1 JS and 1 CSS file
- 98. This saves bytes being transferred, as well as reducing the number of HTTP requests you make
- 99. Also, you can tell SocketStream to load these files from a CDN
- 100. Setting a Templating engine // Minimize and pack assets if you type: SS_ENV=production node app.js if (ss.env === 'production') ss.client.packAssets();
- 101. HTML / CSS / JS code preprocessing Minifying CSS/JS for production use Client-side code organisation HTML Templates WebSocket Management Live Reload Building RPC APIs Building PubSub APIs Session Management Building custom APIs on top of WS Web Workers Connect middleware compatibility
- 102. Web Workers are handy for intensive client-side JS operations
- 103. SocketStream provides support for using Web Workers in your app
- 104. First, create a folder
- 105. Next, put your web worker files in that folder
- 106. Then, load the worker in a client code file, and enjoy
- 107. HTML / CSS / JS code preprocessing Minifying CSS/JS for production use Client-side code organisation HTML Templates WebSocket Management Live Reload Building RPC APIs Building PubSub APIs Session Management Building custom APIs on top of WS Web Workers Connect middleware compatibility
- 108. SocketStream uses Connect middleware to support HTTP features
- 109. SocketStream uses the following middleware by default: • compress - for GZipping assets • cookieParser - for handling user tracking • favicon - for serving a favicon.ico file • session - for handling sessions • static - for serving static assets
- 110. SocketStream uses the following middleware by default: • compress middleware is loaded first, before all other middleware • static middleware is loaded last, after all other middleware
- 111. SocketStream provides a way to load custom middleware into the connect stack
- 113. This allows you to use all of the connect middleware out there today, i.e. EveryAuth
- 114. HTML / CSS / JS code preprocessing Minifying CSS/JS for production use Client-side code organisation HTML Templates WebSocket Management Live Reload Building RPC APIs Building PubSub APIs Session Management Building custom APIs on top of WS Web Workers Connect middleware compatibility
- 115. We use connect’s session middleware, so authentication can be done with either EveryAuth, PassportJS, or you can roll your own.
- 116. We also recommend using connect-redis
- 117. Both HTTP and WebSocket interfaces can get/set the session data
- 118. Via HTTP // app.js ss.http.router.on('/updateSession', function(req, res) { req.session.myVar = 4321; res.end('req.session.myVar has been updated to', req.session.myVar); });
- 119. Via WebSockets
- 120. HTML / CSS / JS code preprocessing Minifying CSS/JS for production use Client-side code organisation HTML Templates WebSocket Management Live Reload Building RPC APIs Building PubSub APIs Session Management Building custom APIs on top of WS Web Workers Connect middleware compatibility
- 121. RPC is a common pattern for clients requesting data from the server
- 122. SocketStream provides a way to construct RPC APIs with flexibility
- 125. HTML / CSS / JS code preprocessing Minifying CSS/JS for production use Client-side code organisation HTML Templates WebSocket Management Live Reload Building RPC APIs Building PubSub APIs Session Management Building custom APIs on top of WS Web Workers Connect middleware compatibility
- 126. PubSub is a great pattern for Single Page Apps
- 127. SocketStream handles this in various ways:
- 128. 1 - Publishing to everyone viewing the app right now Server ss.publish.all('newMessage', message); // Broadcast the message to everyone Client // Listen out for newMessage events coming from the server ss.event.on('newMessage', function(message) { // do something with the message });
- 129. 2 - Sending to private channels Server (subscribe/unsubscribe the session ) // in a /server/rpc file after calling req.use('session') middleware ! req.session.channel.subscribe('disney') ! req.session.channel.unsubscribe('kids') ! req.session.channel.reset() // unsubscribes the session from every channel req.session.channel.list() // shows what channels are subscribed to !
- 130. 2 - Sending to private channels Server (publish to channel) // in a /server/rpc file ss.publish.channel('disney', 'chatMessage', {from: 'jerry', message: 'Has anyone seen Tom?'}); Client (receive channel message) // in a /client/code file ss.event.on('chatMessage', function(msg, channelName){ console.log('The following message was sent to the ' + channelName + ' channel:', msg); });
- 131. 3 - Sending to users Server // in a /server/rpc file ss.publish.user('fred', 'specialOffer', 'Here is a special offer just for you!');
- 132. 4 - Sending to a browser tab Server // in a /server/rpc file ss.publish.socketId('254987654324567', 'justForMe', 'Just for one tab');
- 133. HTML / CSS / JS code preprocessing Minifying CSS/JS for production use Client-side code organisation HTML Templates WebSocket Management Live Reload Building RPC APIs Building PubSub APIs Session Management Building custom APIs on top of WS Web Workers Connect middleware compatibility
- 134. On top of RPC and PubSub, SocketStream provides you with a way to create custom request responders
- 135. Request Response is basically a WebSocket message handler
- 136. It allows you to write message handling for games, where every byte matters
- 137. HTML / CSS / JS code preprocessing Minifying CSS/JS for production use Client-side code organisation HTML Templates WebSocket Management Live Reload Building RPC APIs Building PubSub APIs Session Management Building custom APIs on top of WS Web Workers Connect middleware compatibility
- 139. They are mangled by mobile networks…
- 141. Routed to dead ends by proxy servers
- 142. And severed by train tunnels
- 143. Also, browser support for WebSockets isn’t guaranteed
- 144. You need a transport strategy
- 146. But Socket.io asserted that if a browser supported WebSockets, then it would work
- 147. They learned from this, by building Engine.io
- 148. I created the transport wrapper for Engine.io in SocketStream for Bechtel & Dashku
- 149. And designed it to reconnect the client when severed
- 150. Months later, it made it’s way into SocketStream’s core.
- 151. SocketStream let’s you use this, alongside SockJS
- 152. …and that is SocketStream in a nutshell. Whew!
- 153. Let’s look at some SocketStream apps in the wild
- 155. Vmux vmux.co
- 156. Dashku dashku.com
- 157. SocketStream plugins
- 158. SS-BACKBONE
- 159. SS-ANGULAR
- 160. SS-CUCUMBER
- 161. Tips for deploying SocketStream in production
- 162. 1 - Check your server’s ulimit configuration (This can bite you hard)
- 163. I learned this when Dashku went #1 on Hacker News in 45min
- 164. 2 - Use HTTPS, but handle it at the load balancer level rather than at the app level
- 165. HTTPS helps to improve the stability of WebSocket connections, especially on mobile devices
- 166. But Node’s HTTPS implementation is noticeably slower than using HAProxy or Nginx
- 167. Where is SocketStream going next?
- 168. We’re in the process of getting SocketStream’s test coverage up
- 169. We’re also trying to close some ancient bugs
- 170. We also need better documentation
- 171. We’re giving the web site an overhaul
- 172. And we want to document how SocketStream’s internals function, to help build 0.4
- 173. but what about 0.4?
- 174. …0.4 is starting to look like these:
- 175. I promise you all, it’s coming in June 2014
- 176. Thank You