websocketd VS live

Somewhat related: https://github.com/joewalnes/websocketd

> websocketd is a small command-line tool that will wrap an existing command-line interface program, and allow it to be accessed via a WebSocket.

I hadn't even considered collecting traces/spans in this way yet, and have taken the approach of "stuff outputting logs in JSON format to stderr/local file". I usually end up writing a (temporary, structured) log message with the relevant span tags, but wouldn't it would be much better to run the actual trace/span code and be able to verify it locally without the ad-hoc log message?

The prototype I built is a web application that creates websocket connections, and if those connections receive messages that are JSON, log lines are added. Columns are built dynamically as log messages arrive, and then you can pick which columns to render in the table. If you're curious here's the code, including a screenshot: https://github.com/corytheboyd-smartsheet/json-log-explorer

With websockets, it's very easy to use websocketd (http://websocketd.com), which will watch input files for new lines, and write them verbatim as websocket messages to listeners (the web app).

To make the idea real, would want to figure out how to not require the user to run websocketd out of band, but watching good ol' files is dead simple, and very easy to add to most code (add a new log sink, use existing log file, etc.)

* Additionally, client can stream data to the backend server (if bidirectional GRPC streams are used). I.e. client sends WebSocket messages, those will be transformed to GRPC messages by WebSocket server and delivered to the application backend.

As a result we have a system which allows to quickly create individual streams by using strict GRPC contract but terminating connections over WebSocket transport. So it works well in web browsers. After that no need to write WebSocket protocol, client implementation, handle WebSocket connection. This all will be solved by a suggested WebSocket server and its client SDKs.

The mechanics is similar to Websocketd (https://github.com/joewalnes/websocketd), but instead of creating OS processes we create GRPC streams. The difference from grpc-web (https://github.com/grpc/grpc-web) is that we provide streaming capabilities but not exposing GRPC contract to the client - just allowing to stream any data as payload (both binary and text) with some wrappers from our client SDKs side for managing subscriptions. I.e. it's not native GRPC streams on the client side - we expose just Connection/Subscription object to stream in both directions. GRPC streams used only for communication between WebSocket server and backend. To mention - grpc-web does not support all kinds of streaming now (https://github.com/grpc/grpc-web#streaming-support) while proposed solution can. This all should provide a cross-platform way to quickly write streaming apps due to client SDKs and language-agnostic nature of GRPC.

I personally see both pros and cons in this scheme (without concentrating on both too much here to keep the question short). I spent some time thinking about this myself, already have some working prototypes – but turned out need more opinions before moving forward with the idea and releasing this, kinda lost in doubts.

My main question - whether this seems interesting for someone here? Do you find this useful and see practical value?

I also used to use this (http://websocketd.com/) along with netcat(1) before just biting the bullet and writing my own websocket library for our server as we needed to scale up slightly.

Another option if you’re ready to implement the frontend part is https://github.com/joewalnes/websocketd which has the advantage of streaming the output of your script

Wanted to add websocketd [1]. It's an amazing tool to stream debugging logs to another system where you can build your webapps that accumulate alerts.

Use it only for debugging builds and not for production (obviously).

[1] https://github.com/joewalnes/websocketd

Looks like there are a couple of attempts but my google fu didn't really yield a winner.

https://github.com/while1malloc0/hotwire-go-example

https://github.com/jfyne/live

if that's the case, there is definitely an opening on the market for such tech.

As someone who's been writing web apps since DHTML days, Livewire/Turbo feels like we've finally reached the future.

You can see all those “live-” attributes in a small example above. We just say: “ live-click=’tempUp’ “ and Live implementation makes all bindings to our backend code and makes a websocket call for the appropriate Go handler.

LiveView implementation for Go raised the same type of feelings in me when I went through this for the first time.

And here it is, where LiveView programming concepts help us in a great way. LiveView uses websockets to create a persistent connection between the client and the server, which enables the server to push updates to the client in real-time. This allows developers to build interactive user interfaces that can update dynamically in response to user actions or changes in the application state, without the need for traditional page reloads or AJAX requests. LiveView programming style is based on this excellent Live project that is an implementation of the LiveView approach in Go.

I hate SPAs. I would never do another SPA again if it were up to me. It just adds too much mental context switching and overhead. I can develop fully server-side apps that are lighter, run faster, and at least 20% less development effort (I actually compared that for the same task: https://medium.com/@mustwin/is-react-fast-enough-bca6bef89a6). So why would I ever do an SPA again if it were up to me. I would use https://github.com/jfyne/live which is inspired by Phoenix LiveViews. This is my professional opinion having many years of experience in both kinds of web apps.

I've been working on a Go implementation if you fancy trying it out

https://github.com/jfyne/live

I built it because I love building highly interactive web pages, but the current state of JavaScript leaves me cold. I got really excited when I saw what Phoenix was doing with LiveView and thought I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. There are already a couple of projects also inspired by LiveView (GoLive, live), but I had my own vision that I wanted to realise.

Josh Fyne started a nice implementation of a Phoenix LiveView Go implementation here: https://github.com/jfyne/live