zulip/docs
Anders Kaseorg ea6934c26d dependencies: Remove WebSockets system for sending messages.
Zulip has had a small use of WebSockets (specifically, for the code
path of sending messages, via the webapp only) since ~2013.  We
originally added this use of WebSockets in the hope that the latency
benefits of doing so would allow us to avoid implementing a markdown
local echo; they were not.  Further, HTTP/2 may have eliminated the
latency difference we hoped to exploit by using WebSockets in any
case.

While we’d originally imagined using WebSockets for other endpoints,
there was never a good justification for moving more components to the
WebSockets system.

This WebSockets code path had a lot of downsides/complexity,
including:

* The messy hack involving constructing an emulated request object to
  hook into doing Django requests.
* The `message_senders` queue processor system, which increases RAM
  needs and must be provisioned independently from the rest of the
  server).
* A duplicate check_send_receive_time Nagios test specific to
  WebSockets.
* The requirement for users to have their firewalls/NATs allow
  WebSocket connections, and a setting to disable them for networks
  where WebSockets don’t work.
* Dependencies on the SockJS family of libraries, which has at times
  been poorly maintained, and periodically throws random JavaScript
  exceptions in our production environments without a deep enough
  traceback to effectively investigate.
* A total of about 1600 lines of our code related to the feature.
* Increased load on the Tornado system, especially around a Zulip
  server restart, and especially for large installations like
  zulipchat.com, resulting in extra delay before messages can be sent
  again.

As detailed in
https://github.com/zulip/zulip/pull/12862#issuecomment-536152397, it
appears that removing WebSockets moderately increases the time it
takes for the `send_message` API query to return from the server, but
does not significantly change the time between when a message is sent
and when it is received by clients.  We don’t understand the reason
for that change (suggesting the possibility of a measurement error),
and even if it is a real change, we consider that potential small
latency regression to be acceptable.

If we later want WebSockets, we’ll likely want to just use Django
Channels.

Signed-off-by: Anders Kaseorg <anders@zulipchat.com>
2020-01-14 22:34:00 -08:00
..
_static install docs: Tighten "create organization" step. 2018-03-06 19:43:02 -08:00
_templates docs: Split maintain-secure-upgrade into dedicated docs. 2019-11-22 10:21:20 -08:00
contributing docs: Explain commit summary example explicitly. 2019-12-06 11:39:40 -08:00
development dependencies: Remove WebSockets system for sending messages. 2020-01-14 22:34:00 -08:00
documentation docs: Add documentation for tab switcher. 2019-10-30 16:36:30 -07:00
git docs: link to more-currently-maintained fork of GitX 2020-01-09 16:06:37 -08:00
images docs: Update docs/git/ directory to reflect CI changes. 2018-12-11 12:46:18 -08:00
overview dependencies: Remove WebSockets system for sending messages. 2020-01-14 22:34:00 -08:00
production dependencies: Remove WebSockets system for sending messages. 2020-01-14 22:34:00 -08:00
subsystems dependencies: Remove WebSockets system for sending messages. 2020-01-14 22:34:00 -08:00
testing tools: Remove find-add-class tool. 2020-01-14 15:45:49 -08:00
translating docs: Merge "HTML templates" and "HTML and CSS" docs. 2019-10-16 15:44:26 -07:00
tutorials docs: Deal with a few broken links. 2019-10-15 14:03:53 -07:00
.gitignore gitignore: Anchor patterns that should be anchored. 2017-07-19 14:03:49 -07:00
code-of-conduct.md repository: Add CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md. 2017-06-14 18:43:08 -07:00
conf.py docs: Remove build warning. 2019-12-02 17:29:55 -08:00
index.rst docs: Add missing index.rst for documentation/. 2019-05-29 17:54:02 -07:00
Makefile docs: Replace Makefile based on output of newer sphinx-quickstart. 2019-12-02 18:39:33 -08:00
README.md docs: Add README.md to zulip/docs to prevent reading on GitHub. 2018-04-24 10:50:39 -07:00
requirements.readthedocs.txt requirements: Rename requirements files. 2017-11-21 02:38:26 +05:30
THIRDPARTY dependencies: Remove WebSockets system for sending messages. 2020-01-14 22:34:00 -08:00

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