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# Get Started |
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In this guide we’ll create a basic chat application. It requires almost no basic prior knowledge of Node.JS or Socket.IO, so it’s ideal for users of all knowledge levels. |
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## Introduction |
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Writing a chat application with popular web applications stacks like LAMP (PHP) has normally been very hard. It involves polling the server for changes, keeping track of timestamps, and it’s a lot slower than it should be. |
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Sockets have traditionally been the solution around which most real-time chat systems are architected, providing a bi-directional communication channel between a client and a server. |
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This means that the server can push messages to clients. Whenever you write a chat message, the idea is that the server will get it and push it to all other connected clients. |
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# The Web Framework |
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The first goal is to set up a simple HTML webpage that serves out a form and a list of messages. We’re going to use the Node.JS web framework `express` to this end. Make sure *Node.JS* is installed. |
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First let’s create a `package.json` manifest file that describes our project. I recommend you place it in a dedicated empty directory (I’ll call mine `chat-example`). |
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``` |
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{ |
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"name": "socket-chat-example", |
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"version": "0.0.1", |
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"description": "my first socket.io app", |
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"dependencies": {} |
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} |
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``` |
