IMHO, Web Sockets aren't going to get you any real benefit here. The primary point of web sockets is to keep a bidirectional conversation open for the long term during a visitor's session which makes it super beneficial to something like an infinite scroll, but it sounds like your problem is a one time rendered asset that's taking an inordinately long time to return. That's why I suggested AJAX but the other suggestions I've seen of iframes are also applicable to what you've given us about your scenario (but without seeing your page, iframes may not be a very 'pretty' answer).
When I'm facing an architectural efficiency question like this, I find it helpful to remember that the web is a document platform we've mutated into an application platform by sheer force of will. All the server cares about is returning each document in isolation. Everything else that makes it LOOK like a web page is responding to the client is JavaScript and CSS voodoo. In your case it sounds like the limiting factor is how long that individual asset takes to return. Absent a rewrite of the inefficient asset, your primary goal is to take that object out of the critical path for the server to complete the main page return faster. In this case without you ALSO adding a way to make the slow asset a separate document return and once you've done that (AJAX, iframes, etc...), web sockets didn't buy you anything. However, like all things related to technology, there's a lot of ways to accomplish any task. I still stand by my original suggestion that you at least look at the timings on your CGI before considering a total rewrite, though. 🙂 HTH, Scott P.S. Interesting debate on SO about web sockets vs AJAX that evolved over several years. 🙂 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10377384/why-use-ajax-when-websockets-is-available ________________________________ From: Tom Browder <tom.brow...@gmail.com> Sent: October 3, 2020 3:29 PM To: users@httpd.apache.org <users@httpd.apache.org> Subject: Re: [users@httpd] Re: Alternatives to SSI (server side includes)? On Sat, Oct 3, 2020 at 13:46 Scott A. Wozny <sawo...@hotmail.com<mailto:sawo...@hotmail.com>> wrote: Sounds like a job for AJAX, but before throwing out the baby with the bath water I'd seriously consider turning up logging with timestamps on your existing CGI and That's a good idea, Scott, I've just been too lazy and debugging CGI is such a pain. The clients are mostly casual browsers, but every visitor triggers the CGI so that's a lot of work for the db. Regarding the db it's currently an SQLite instance but I'm running about 10+ virtual sites off the same db and needing writes so that alone may be part of the problem. Also, I do have a good Pg db running I've intended to use but just haven't gotten a "round tuit" yet. But, could a web socket setup help do you think? Best, -Tom
