WebSocket for Social Gaming Training Course

Training » All Courses » HTML5 » WebSocket for Social Gaming

Course Summary

This training course addresses the fundamentals of WebSocket programming, the setup of a WebSocket server, and the integration of applications into the Facebook environment. Facebook is used as an example container and the programming concepts presented in this training course apply equally well to any stand-alone WebSocket applications.

HTML5 WebSocket is a new standard that enables real-time, bi-directional communications between web browsers and servers. This technology offers the possibility to create a new class of real-time applications that are not only simple to build, but also dramatically lower unnecessary network throughput (think: 1000:1) and significantly lower latency.

As a demonstration of the potential utility of this new communication standard, attendees will examine several HTML5 WebSocket applications. One of these is EarthControl, a real-time, multi-player game for Facebook which makes extensive use of WebSocket. EarthControl allows groups of players to play simultaneously against each other with each player seeing and reacting to all other players’ moves in real-time. The concepts learned from the study of EarthControl will then be applied to various other practical applications during the rest of the course.

Although the basic concept of a WebSocket-enabled application is relatively simple, the actual implementation of this technology involves a number of steps which require careful attention to detail. This workshop is designed to help developers quickly get up-to-speed with building real-time WebSocket-based applications. Attendees will receive the client and server source code for a simplified version of the EarthControl application. This code will include all the key components of the application software and can be used as a template for attendees’ own applications. In addition, attendees will receive a developer’s edition of the Kaazing WebSocket Gateway and access to their own hosted Amazon EC2 Linux server during the training course.

[top] Duration

2 days.

[top] Objectives

Upon completion of Marakana HTML5 Web Sockets course, you will be able to:

Build real-time HTML5 Web Sockets applications
Understand fundamentals of HTML5 Web Sockets programming
Configure a Web Socket server and an open source message broker
Develop, deploy, manage, and secure an HTML5 Web Socket application
Set up an application within the Facebook framework and access Facebook user data
Understand key details of the server and client side HTML5 Web Sockets code

[top] Audience

This course is designed for software developers interested in designing, creating, and deploying real-time HTML5 Web Sockets applications. It is valuable to both beginners and advanced developers that already have experience in developing real-time web applications. To get the most out of the course, you should be somewhat familiar with HTML, JavaScript, and PHP.

Prior exposure to any of these concepts will be helpful, but not required:

JavaScript/Ajax/Comet
PHP

[top] Outline

Introduction

Real-Time web communication strategies
WebSockets—simplicity and power
Overview of a WebSocket enabled distributed application
Demo of EarthControl—a WebSocket-enabled Facebook game

Server Setup

Assign attendees to individual virtual servers
ActiveMQ STOMP broker setup
Kaazing WebSocket Gateway configuration

Distributed Programming Basics

Client-side software
Server-side software

User Interface Programming in JavaScript

User Interface programming concepts
Develop EarthControl-lite client code

Server Programming in PHP

Develop EarthControl-lite server code
Server code persistence
Accessing MySQL database

Facebook Applications

Setting up a Facebook application
Accessing user data via the Facebook API
Add Facebook API calls to EarthControl lite client code
Run EarthControl-lite from within Facebook

Other Real-Time HTML5 Applications

Extending HTML5 Web Sockets
Building a real-time enterprise application demo

[top] Additional Notes

About Your Instructors

Peter Lubbers is the Director of Documentation and Training at Kaazing. Peter is the co-author of the Apress book "Pro HTML5 Programming" and teaches HTML5 training courses. An HTML5 and WebSocket enthusiast, Peter frequently speaks at international events.

Prior to joining Kaazing, Peter worked as an information architect at Oracle, where he wrote many books, such as the award-winning Oracle Application Server Portal Configuration Guide and the Oracle Application Server Developer's Guide for Microsoft Office. Peter also develops documentation automation solutions and two of his inventions are patented.

A native of the Netherlands, Peter served as a Special Forces commando in the Royal Dutch Green Berets. In his spare time (ha!), Peter likes to run ultra-marathons. He is the 2007 and 2009 ultrarunner.net series champion and three-time winner of the Tahoe Super Triple marathon. Peter lives on the edge of the Tahoe National Forest and loves to run in the Sierra Nevada foothills and around Lake Tahoe (preferably in one go!). Don’t worry though—he won’t make you run laps around the building or do pushups during the HTML5 course!

John Bergmans is an experienced speaker who has performed technical presentations on topics as varied as LabVIEW programming techniques, solid rocket motor control and laser-based instrumentation. Bergmans Mechatronics LLC, established in 2003, primarily develops data acquisition and control system hardware and software and specialized instrumentation. BML’s client base includes firms in the industrial, medical, scientific, and defense sectors.

John’s interest in networked computing stems from the development of several TCP/IP-based data acquisition and control systems. During the development of a prototype web-based personal scheduling application, Mr. Bergmans encountered and became proficient in the setup and development of WebSocket-based applications.