Node.js 8 the Right Way

Implementing a Messaging Protocol

We’ve just explored how to create socket servers that listen for incoming connections in Node. So far, our example programs have sent plain-text messages that are meant to be read by a human. In this section we’ll design and implement a better protocol.

A protocol is a set of rules that defines how endpoints in a system communicate. Any time you develop a networked application in Node.js, you’re working with one or more protocols. Here we’ll create a protocol based on passing JSON messages over TCP.

JSON is incredibly prevalent in Node.js. We’ll use it extensively for data serialization and configuration throughout the book. It is significantly easier to program clients against than plain text, and ...