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A gazillion-user comet server with C

22 points by EGreg ↗ HN
I'm going to be implementing chat soon in this product I'm building (kind of keeping it on the DL until I have something big to show)... so I started researching comet servers. And I came across this:

http://aleccolocco.blogspot.com/2008/10/gazillion-user-comet-server-with.html

Whoa nelly, this should do nicely. Thought I'd share.

12 comments

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exit
you should probably structure this submission different.
sgt
It's not so bad. It's just one of those "hey, found something cool. Here's a link, if you're interested".
aonic
I would recommend nodejs or the twisted framework for python if you don't want to go the C route
alecco
Twisted works well but as with most dynamic versions it gets too non-deterministic for my taste. You have to monitor those.

I barely skimmed node.js, it looks very good. I have an nginx-V8 module for a web framwork I'm working on. Both give very good control to keep the system with nice logarithmic resource usage, without spikes. One of my unfinished blog drafts talks about it.

[dead] ItarPeyo
Based on the same async IO fundamentals:

Orbited is a complete solution based on Twisted. It handles the most difficult part - crossbrowser portability already - http://orbited.org/

jaddison
Too bad he never finished his 4-part write up. The linked article was pretty interesting to read. In one of his later postings he mentioned APE (AJAX Push Engine) - anyone taken a look at that?
alecco
I'm ashamed for not finishing up in so long. 2008!

The post was following Richard Jones' Mochiweb/erlang "Million-user" implementation. And he ended up using a libevent-based solution to handle connections in front of Mochiweb :-/

Also note the post on Linux ephemeral port issue: http://aleccolocco.blogspot.com/2008/11/ephemeral-ports-prob...

Niels, from /dev/poll (back then) and libevent fame got into the thread.

Well, OK. It's Sunday and it's beautiful outside, but let's see if I can get some update today.

revoltingx
Looks cool, but I'm much rather use Erlang because of the whole framework it provides.