Chat App with notifications system and several server updates client side technologies, Using Websocket , SSE, Short and Long - Polling Connections
A network socket is a software structure within a network node of a computer network that serves as an endpoint for sending and receiving data across the network. The structure and properties of a socket are defined by an application programming interface for the networking architecture.
The WebSocket API is an advanced technology that makes it possible to open a two-way interactive communication session between the user's browser and a server. With this API, you can send messages to a server and receive event-driven responses without having to poll the server for a reply.
Developing a web application that uses server-sent events is straightforward. You'll need a bit of code on the server to stream events to the front-end, but the client side code works almost identically to websockets in part of handling incoming events. This is one-way connection, so you can't send events from a client to a server.
Push technology, or server push, is a style of Internet-based communication where the request for a given transaction is initiated by the publisher or central server. It is contrasted with pull/get, where the request for the transmission of information is initiated by the receiver or client.
In simple terms, Short polling is an AJAX-based timer that calls at fixed delays whereas Long polling is based on Comet (i.e server will send data to the client when the server event happens with no delay). Both have pros and cons and suited based on the use case.