EventSource: The under appreciated sibling of WebSockets

As soon as you even mention the words real time and browser everyone’s minds immediately go to WebSockets. And I get it, WebSockets are cool, flexible and can be used for almost anything. From updates to how far away your bus is, to downloading a stream of messages in chat applications to syncing your current state for collaboration when multiple people work on the same document.

But there exists other technologies that do the same thing. Things that have just as good browser support (maybe even better), demand less from the network setup of the server, and is a lot easier to understand how works.

In this talk we will take a look at the most common ways to implement real time communication between browser and server (not video conferencing, sorry WebRTC fans), talk about how they work, pros and cons of each, and look at some examples of how you can use them (rather easily in fact) to make “real time apps” from scratch.

The inspiration behind this talk comes from a job interview assignment I got years ago. After researching different techniques and discovering EventSource I got obsessed with it and a bit surprised that it’s not talked about more! I look forward to finally giving it some well deserved time in the spotlight!

• Conferences

• NDC Conferences
• Benedicte Emilie Brækken