C H A P T E R  7

Using the WebSocket API

In this chapter, we'll explore what you can do with the most powerful communication feature in the HTML5 specification: WebSocket, which defines a full-duplex communication channel that operates through a single socket over the web. WebSocket is not just another incremental enhancement to conventional HTTP communications; it represents a large advance, especially for real-time, event-driven web applications.

WebSocket provides such an improvement from the old, convoluted “hacks” that are used to simulate a full-duplex connection in a browser that it prompted Google's Ian Hickson—the HTML5 specification lead—to say:

“Reducing kilobytes of data to 2 bytes…and reducing latency from 150ms to 50ms is far ...

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