Version 6.5.1 of The Server Framework was released today. This is primarily a bug fix release, although we also add several new example clients and servers. This release includes the following, see the release notes, here, for full details of all changes. Bug fixes to The Core Framework which affect the use of the newly added “Read Again” functionality. Fixes to the Hixie76 WebSockets protocol handler to improve interoperability. Added outbound connection establishment support to the Hixie76 protocol handler.

My server logs are showing that there are some people currently trying to hack this site. They appear to be mainly Chinese. I assume you think you might be able to download the source code to The Server Framework for free if you manage to hack my websites; after all the same IP addresses have been exploring my sites a lot and looking at lots of the documentation pages on here…

We have a new client profile available here for a client that we’ve had since 2009 and who use The Server Framework in their vehicle tracking software.

Version 16 of the draft WebSocket protocol specification was just released and the HyBi mailing list announcement for this version contained the following: Chairs and editors believe that this version is final (before the publication of the RFC). Thank you to everybody who helped to get this completed and for the stimulating discussions on the way. Now feel free to discuss extensions, WebSocket 1.1, etc. :-). There are no major differences between this and version 13 and the version number of the protocol itself stays at 13 so The WebSockets Option Pack supports everything that will be in the final RFC.

I’ve just released The WebSockets Option Pack for The Server Framework and I think it’s worth running through why the API that I designed ended up as it did. This will probably end up as part of The Server Framework’s WebSockets documentation, which is currently a little sparse. The WebSockets protocol is a message based protocol with unbounded message sizes. This makes a general purpose API more difficult to design as some clients of the API may wish to work in terms of discrete messages and some may wish to work in terms of streams of data.

Version 6.5 of The Server Framework was released today. This release includes the following, see the release notes, here, for full details of all changes. WebSockets support via The WebSockets Option Pack. WebSocket protocol compliance test results can be found here. Improvements to the flow control connection filter so that managing high volume connections is easier than ever. Added code to automatically detect if it’s safe to enable FILE_SKIP_COMPLETION_PORT_ON_SUCCESS on a given machine.

I have a tendency to write unit tests that are a little more invasive than they need to be; these tests make sure that not only are the results as expected but also that as many of the side-effects and interactions with other objects are as expected as well. So, for example, in my current WebSockets development for The Server Framework I have some tests which test that the correct data is delivered to the client of the API that I’m developing and also test that the API interacts with its buffer allocator correctly and doesn’t leak memory.

September already… We’ve spent much of the time since the last Company News update working with our super secretive Online Gaming company to make their product even better. We’ve also been updating The Server Framework’s WebSocket support for a couple of new Server Framework clients and generally improving performance for the 6.5 release of The Server Framework which is due real soon now. In addition we’ve launched the LockExplorer website, but, to be honest, we’ve been too busy with The Server Framework to do all the writing and evangelising that we have planned for the existing LockExplorer tools, let alone finish the more advanced tools.

Another day, another WebSocket protocol draft… That’s probably a little unfair actually. Although there have been several drafts in quick succession over the past few weeks the protocol itself has only changed very slightly. The majority of the changes have simply been to the wording and arrangement of the document. I was fairly cynical about the likely quality of the final RFC when I started looking at the 09 draft and then, in search of clarification, started following the HyBi Working Group’s mailing list.

I’m nearing the end of my WebSockets implementation for The Server Framework and have been dealing with various protocol compliance issues. Whilst I have decent unit test coverage I haven’t, yet, sat down and produced compliance specific unit tests which walk through the various parts of the (ever changing) draft RFC and test each aspect. Looking back, I probably should have taken this approach even though the RFC was fluid. Anyway.