[wp-hackers] GSoC 2014: WebSockets in WordPress

[Atanas Penchev]

Hello!

For quite some time since I started following the development of React and
Ratchet, I have been intrigued by the idea of using WebSockets together
with WordPress. Although on Apache installations a WebSocket server would
still require running an additional process, it provides many potential
benefits for both users and developers.

By using Ratchet, I plan to write a WebSocket API which could be used for
plugin development. It should ease the creation of real-time solutions,
like new comments and posts notifications, chat systems and live updates of
the site's components (for example, automatically displaying new content to
all users as soon as it becomes available without a browser refresh).

Besides the use of WebSockets, I am also thinking of using the React server
for serving request, which could provide a significant performance boost,
as mentioned in this post:
http://marcjschmidt.de/blog/2014/02/08/php-high-performance.html

During the time working in a small company, I had to go through WordPress
theme and plugin development. Also, I had developed several applications
with Node.js/PHP + React and WebSockets and I believe it would be a great
experience combining my skills while improving such a successful project.

What are your thoughts on the idea? Any feedback would be useful. :)