Where does WebSockets fit?
As we have seen some examples of web applications, now the question here is where does WebSockets fit in these applications or any web application? Let us first understand something about application behavior; let us take an example of Gmail, which is basically a mailing client. The work of a mailing client is to fetch mails and display them. This sounds simple, but the problem arises when someone sends you a mail and you want that mail to be displayed right away. To implement such a functionality there are different ways, such as polling and long-polling, which are not efficient. So WebSockets solves the problem here by providing a server push facility. WebSockets provides functionality to push from both the client and server side, which makes it stand out.
WebSockets comes with some good features and great benefits over other methods of communication. Some of the features and benefits of WebSockets are:
- Full-duplex communication
- Low bandwidth consumption
- Security
- Low latency
- Works over Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) (although it needs HTTP for initial handshake)
- Supported by almost all the web browsers and web servers including mobile browsers
We can treat WebSockets as a feature which enhances the experience of web applications. And with HTML5-enhanced features, we can create a dynamic and real-time application.
