The definitive guide to HTML5 WebSocket
The content here is under the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license
The Definitive Guide to HTML5 WebSocket is a compact yet comprehensive resource that provides both theoretical insights and practical examples for developers. WebSockets are a transformative technology in modern web development, enabling full-duplex communication between clients and servers—a game-changer for building real-time applications like chat platforms, live dashboards, and multiplayer games.
This book stands out by offering a clear and approachable explanation of WebSocket concepts, from the fundamentals of the API to more advanced topics like protocols, security, and deployment considerations. Whether you’re just beginning your journey with WebSockets or looking to deepen your knowledge, this guide is an excellent starting point, packing a wealth of information into its concise format.
Book content
- Chapter 1: Introduction to HTML5 WebSocket
- Chapter 2: The WebSocket API
- Chapter 3: The WebSocket protocol
- Chapter 4: Building Instant Messaging and Chat over WebSocket with XMPP
- Chapter 5: Using Messaging over WebSocket with STOMP
- Chapter 6: VNC with the Remote Framebuffer Protocol
- Chapter 7: WebSocket Security
- Chapter 8: Deployment Considerations
Highlight sections
I would like to highlight three sections of the book that I do recommend a second read.
Chapter 2: The WebSocket API
If you are not familiar with sockets you should read more than once this section. The authors have had the caution of explain each part of the API to the readers and also a amazing example of drag-in-drop image is given in the last item of this chapter.
Chapter 3: The WebSocket Protocol
Protocols are a essential part of the computers and therefore are also true for WebSockets. A brief introduction of protocols is given in this chapter and how you can inspect and understand the WebSockets protocol, also the handshake is presented. Be aware in the handshake steps because it is a hard task to accomplish it involves headers from the client and a little bit of operation with sha1, the authors chose nodejs to create a simple handshake between client and server but if you’re interested in PHP you can see this post to a PHP version.
Chapter 7: WebSocket Security
As a every application the security is a point of attention. This section of the books brings to us how WebSockets work with security to prevent DDoS, Proxy Server attacks, Man-In-the-middle and so on. The book in this section has great examples and explanation about security and also shows a handshake feature in the security point of view.
Before you go
Check these links to further information about WebSockets!