Express VS Socket.io

First, we will install Express.js and Socket.io using the below command:

Node.js with Express (https://expressjs.com/)

So that’s the first big downside of building a REST API without using packages like express.js - you have to build all the route handling yourself, plus add some support for middlewares.

Express.js Documentation

Express.js was created around the time callbacks were _the_ architecture in Node.js. The world, including UI, quickly found callbacks do not compose well, and void return values are hard to test because of side-effects. Promises were created so you could compose functions, but still have control where your side-effects go. This negates the need for middlewares / callbacks.

The Devvit team just announced a new experimental way to build WebView based apps for Reddit. Previously only static HTML/JS/CSS could be used. With this new version, it is possible to run server-side code through Node including spinning up an Express server.

Basic knowledge of JavaScript and Express

With that set, we can import callOpenAI on a controller. I am using express to manage the API endpoint.

The basis of my small API proxy is the NPM package http-proxy-middleware from Steven Chim, which I utilized to build a system that can be used via configuration for various endpoints and that runs on a server under the Node.js framework Express.

Fiber: Go framework inspired in express.

So far, we have created our server using express’ HTTP Server and also initialized our Socket.io using the server instance we created.

Another heavily dependent external library for Node.js apps is the ws or Socket.IO for client connections to real-time data feeds or interacting with other WebSocket servers.

-Socket.IO for real-time events

I've recently been tinkering away at a turn-based multiplayer browser game in my downtime. I'm a Typescript guy so my current tech stack is Next.js, Node.js, and ws[0] for WebSockets (though I'm thinking of switching over to socket.io[1] given how much more they provide out of the box).

Right now my main concern is how to handle continuous deployments without interrupting ongoing games (amongst other WebSocket challenges[2]). I was planning to deploy via Coolify, but am considering other options given that their zero downtime deploys still needs some love[3].

How would you approach building a turn-based multiplayer browser game in 2025?

[0] https://www.npmjs.com/package/ws

[1] https://www.npmjs.com/package/socket.io

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42816359

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43589794

In line 32 we have the socket.io editaData event which handles data editing in the server. When the user clicks edit in the client, the server searches for the data using the findIndex method. If it exists it updates the data in the crudData array then it broadcasts the edited data to the client.

Tools like Socket.IO and WebSockets significantly simplify the implementation of real-time communication between client and server.

To capture the test execution status, I wrote a custom karma reporter(a good resource) with which I was able to emit the test execution status back to the vscode extension. I am using socket.io to do this communication.

Building such experiences is already possible, using libraries such as socket.io and React Together. This blog post explains how to easily add real-time collaboration to an existing React app, using React Together.

Complexity: WebSockets require you to handle connection lifecycle events, such as errors and reconnections. While the code example I provided could suffice for simple use cases, more complex use cases might arise, like automatic reconnection and queueing messages sent by the client when the connection wasn't open. For that, you can either extend this code or use an external library like react-use-websocket for a relatively lightweight react implementation or socketio for both client and server SDKs.

Socket.IO