Realtime Web Apps: With HTML5 WebSocket, PHP, and jQuery

Introduction

A couple of years back, I went to a conference called “Keeping It Realtime.” It was a collection of presenters who were deep in the trenches of the realtime world, solving problems that most of the rest of the world had never even heard about.

The power of this technology was staggering, and the number of places that it was already being used was pretty surprising. I wanted to know more, start using it right then. How could I start using this wonderful, magical new idea in my own applications?

I sat down in the audience for one of the hands-on sessions and was immediately lost. A small, shy dude with a beard was at the podium with his laptop, mumbling into the microphone and coding in Vim at incredible speeds. By the time I was able ...