Consider using msgpack for socket messages

[maritz]

https://www.github.com/msgpack/msgpack reduces the size of the transmitted websocket frames and thus should help keep bandwidth down.

[dirkk0]

Additionally/alternatively this article shows a number of ideas on how to optimize:
http://buildnewgames.com/optimizing-websockets-bandwidth/

[jbillmann]

@maritz @dirkk0 I've thought about this quite a bit and I'm struggling to justify having GarageServer.IO manage compression.

Let's say for a moment that GarageServer.IO would manage compression, after you consider packet gains and cost of performance, I think that compression, and certain types of compression are not for everyone.

With respect to MessagePack, for example, consider the first couple of comments in each of these HN threads:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4091051
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4093077

In a nutshell, MsgPack isn't always faster when considering JSON and a browser, but of course, it always depends on the situation.

Perhaps a better route is to expose call backs (encode, decode) that provide the data which will be sent such that developers, if they so choose, can add in their own compression, consume compression libraries, etc.?

[maritz]

Yes, sounds great.