WebSocket Communication

[exastencil]

The intention to keep interaction between components and application data simple for users is to just treat the data as if it is accessible and not to let users manually trigger API calls. The idea is to have a database abstraction running in the client (browser / app) and keep data in sync based on what is needed. This requires a duplex communication protocol, so the simplest way is to open a WebSocket connection and send and request data and events that way.

This is one of the core features needed to make Porous feasible.

Currently the development server makes use of Agoo in order to upgrade regular connections to WebSocket connections alongside regular HTTP requests. This works, and while the entity and event systems do not exist yet, it is being used for live reload.

What is needed is to structure the mechanisms better, which will likely happen as part of the entity and event handling implementations. There is also currently an issue where, as soon as a WebSocket connection is initiated the Opal::Builder inevitably suffers a segmentation fault (opal/opal#2643). I have mitigated it as much as I can with configuration, but unless they find and resolve an issue in the builder code, I will also need to separate the builder into its own process or otherwise isolate it from the server (e.g. using the opal command). This makes emitting message over WebSockets harder, so I am hoping to avoid that and continue using the Opal::Builder in process.