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Dave Shevett (shevett@homeport.org)
Tue, 3 Sep 1996 10:03:34 -0400 (EDT) 

Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 10:03:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dave Shevett <shevett@homeport.org>
Subject: Re: [mSQL] Chat Rooms
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.95.960903095317.154G-100000@sloop.homeport.org>

On Mon, 2 Sep 1996, Matthew Benjamin wrote:
> Are people actually using database transactions to build chat rooms?

Yup.

> This is not an efficient use of system resources. mSQL is not a general
> purpose IPC mechanism, rather it is a database server. It is utterly
> unsuited for this purpose.

Absolutely 100% agreed. To be honest, HTTP is completely and totally
unsuited to the task, generating a TRMENDOUS amount of overhead even when
there is no traffic at all in a 'chat' room.

If you are going to seriously build a 'chat' system, do _not_ use a web
interface, and even worse, don't use a web interface with a sql server
back end. Go out and download the irc server from cs-pub.bu.edu, and get
any of the dozen or two Java IRC chat clients. You will see a 30 to 1
reduction in traffic to your web server (a single 'chat' command from an
IRC client consists of one line of text over an already open socket
connection, as opposed to the connect-response-query-response-disconnect
sequence that has to be done _every 20 seconds_ on a web-based chat
system.

Really folks. Doni't take bandwidth for granted. Even if you are on a
local net, think before you build.

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