Stardust - a simple COMET server

[beppu]

On this eve of the NASA moon bombing ( http://twitter.com/LCross_NASA
), I thought it would be apropos to introduce my latest Squatting
app,
...Stardust.

http://search.cpan.org/dist/Stardust/

http://github.com/beppu/stardust

It is a simple COMET server that you can run alongside another web app
to give it the ability to do server push. (It's like the server can
start making requests to the browsers, effectively reversing the
traditional client => server architecture of the web.)

To get a feeling for what it can do, install it from CPAN and run the
demo.

sudo cpan Stardust
stardust.pl --demo

Then go to http://localhost:5742/demo/ using multiple browsers (but
don't use IE just yet (sorry)).

There are 2 demos so far.

- The [Curl Commands] demo shows how using curl to send HTTP requests
to Stardust can immediately affect all the browsers that are viewing
that page.

- The [Colorful Boxes] demo lets you mouse over the rectangles to
change their color. Every browser watching that page should be able
to see these changes happen in real time.

If you have FireBug (or its equivalent in other browsers) enabled,
watching the HTTP requests go by will be informative as well.

It's a bit rough around the edges, but I think it's fun to play with.
I also think that I've made something that's potentially useful to non-
perl users, and I'd like to tell the jQuery and MooTools communities
about this to get a little bit of cross-pollination between the Perl
and JavaScript communities going. Don't know when that'll be,
though....

--beppu

[draegtun]

I see you also gave a talk on Stardust @ YAPC::Asia 2009:
http://conferences.yapcasia.org/ya2009/talk/2269

I say "see" because I believe they did video all the talks so just
waiting for them to be processed (I believe it will appear on link
above when ready).

Well done... will give Stardust a look when I get a mo.

BTW... I stumbled upon another Perl COMET server a little while back:
http://meteorserver.org/

I did post the link on Hacker News but it got no interest:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=716291

Shame because since my post there's been loads of links & comments on
Python COMET servers :(

Oh well ;-)

/I3az/


On 9 Oct, 01:59, beppu <john.be...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On this eve of the NASA moon bombing (http://twitter.com/LCross_NASA

> ), I thought it would be apropos to introduce my latest Squatting
> app,
> ...Stardust.
>
> http://search.cpan.org/dist/Stardust/
>
> http://github.com/beppu/stardust
>
> It is a simple COMET server that you can run alongside another web app
> to give it the ability to do server push.  (It's like the server can
> start making requests to the browsers, effectively reversing the
> traditional client => server architecture of the web.)
>
> To get a feeling for what it can do, install it from CPAN and run the
> demo.
>
> sudo cpan Stardust
> stardust.pl --demo
>

> Then go tohttp://localhost:5742/demo/using multiple browsers (but

[beppu]

On Oct 9, 9:11 am, draegtun <draeg...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I see you also gave a talk on Stardust @ YAPC::Asia 2009:http://conferences.yapcasia.org/ya2009/talk/2269
>
> I say "see" because I believe they did video all the talks so just
> waiting for them to be processed (I believe it will appear on link
> above when ready).

Yes, I gave a presentation at YAPC::Asia. Being a n00b at giving
presentations, I look back and I wish I could've done a better job,
but oh well. My main goal was to not be boring, and I think I at
least satisfied that requirement.

At any rate, it was a good excuse to go to Japan, and see how they do
things over there. I ended up staying at Dan Kogai's home along with
many of the other foreigners who were presenting at YAPC::Asia, and
that in itself was a great experience. Anyway, I met a lot of cool
and interesting people, and it was probably my favorite YAPC out of
all the ones I've attended.

After YAPC::Asia, I stayed in Japan for an additional 2 weeks to go
visit relatives and see the countryside, and I was mostly offline
during those 2 weeks.

It wasn't until I had come back to the US that I noticed that miyagawa
had written Squatting::On::PSGI so that Squatting apps could work on
top of Plack (which is kinda like Ruby's rack but in Perl).

http://plackperl.org/

> Well done... will give Stardust a look when I get a mo.
>
> BTW...  I stumbled upon another Perl COMET server a little while back:http://meteorserver.org/
>
> I did post the link on Hacker News but it got no interest:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=716291

The meteorserver guys have excellent documentation on all the various
ways you can implement the client side of COMET. I have a feeling
that many COMET implementers learned from them. I also envy how
pretty their site is. I wish I had design skills.

[draegtun]

On 11 Oct, 20:39, beppu <john.be...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It wasn't until I had come back to the US that I noticed that miyagawa
> had written Squatting::On::PSGI so that Squatting apps could work on
> top of Plack (which is kinda like Ruby's rack but in Perl).
>
> http://plackperl.org/

Yes PSGI / Plack is very interesting and have been keeping a close eye
on it.

Here is a good blog post from yesterday about it:
http://blog.patspam.com/2009/plebgui-webgui-meets-plack

Also Miyagawa himself as posted many articles on his blog about it:
http://bulknews.typepad.com/

> The meteorserver guys have excellent documentation on all the various
> ways you can implement the client side of COMET.  I have a feeling
> that many COMET implementers learned from them.  I also envy how
> pretty their site is.  I wish I had design skills.

Very rarely do advanced skills for programming and design come
together... unless your name is _why ;-)

If you need any help with design for Squatting / Stardust site then
perhaps someone more design savvy on this mailing list or perhaps
wider Perl community can help?

Anyway as MeteorServer shows you often need more than docs & design.
It really needs to get Perl community involved if it wants to gain any
traction.

/I3az/