is it possible to make chat app in node without using socket.io

Question

I want to make small chat app in nodejs.

But every where i found that to achieve this functionality node is used with socket.io

As node was also created with push notification in mind so thinking

How to create chat app purely in node if possible ?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I want to make small chat app in nodejs. But every where i found that to achieve this functionality node is used with socket.io. As node was also created with push notification in mind so thinking How to create chat app purely in node if possible ?

Yes, it is possible to create a node.js application that supports chat without using socket.io. You have these choices:

1. Use a straight webSocket to "push" to the client. You will need to find or write your own server-side code for handling the webSocket protocol because such code is not built into node by default. The ws module is one such library. If using a plain webSocket, you will likely have to implement on your own some of the functionality that socket.io implements such as auto-reconnect.

2. Find some other library (besides socket.io) that is built on top of a webSocket that would let you push data to a client.

3. Invent your own substitute for a webSocket (probably client polling or long polling) and code that. This is what was done before webSockets existed. It is much less efficient than a continuously connected webSocket.

All of these choices involve writing some code that has already been written for you in socket.io so most developers would rather just use the already working and already tested solution rather than reimplement it themselves.

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To get into further detail in your question, you will need to define what "purely in node" means to really answer this question. That's not a well defined term. The socket.io library is just a library written in Javascript just like thousands of other libraries you can use in node.js to get your job done.

As you quickly see with node programming, you can't do very much at all in a default node instance without loading other libaries. Some of these libraries come with a default installation of node (like the fs library or http library, for example) and others are libraries that you install before using (usually as simple as typing "npm install socket.io") and then var io = require("socket.io");.

If you are not going to use the socket.io library, then you need a mechanism for "pushing" data to a client in order to make a chat application work. The only true "push" that has any cross-browser support is a webSocket. A webSocket is what socket.io uses. You could use a webSocket from node without using socket.io, but you'd have to write or find code that implements the webSocket protocol that you can run on node (the ws module is one such library). Such code is not built into node by default.

If you weren't going to use webSocket, then there is no other cross-browser method to "push" data to a browser client. Your only other alternative I'm aware of would be browser polling which isn't actual push, but tries to simulate push by just regularly asking the server if the server has anything new for a particular client. An enhancement to straight polling is "long polling" which was invented before we had actual push with webSockets.

All of this problem has already been solved in socket.io so unless you really just want your own research project to rebuilt similar functionality in your own code, you may as well build on solutions that have already been done by using something like the socket.io library.

If you have some specific objection to the socket.io library, then please explain that objection so we can understand what your real goal is here.