Not for 'how-to' coding questions but PHP theory instead, this forum is here for those of us who wish to learn about design aspects of programming with PHP.
I need to make desktop based RSS reader (in desktop RAD tools). I know how to fetch RSS feeds and load headlines and contents into my application. Obviously we can ping remote site once in a while to check for new entries in its RSS, but I prefer not doing this and have my server side application be notified about new entries and send notification to my client application for making it ready parse new entries.
I think server side application could be written in PHP and can have some sort of TCP/IP connection (Socket) to desktop application. first of all I need your advices and tips on this theory and if possible, please guide me to the right direction.
Are you building an RSS reader or a CDN (content distributation network). You should choose one. An RSS reader should just go out and request new RSS every so often. Most good RSS readers have a setting that lets the client allow when to do that.
Why would anyone use your application to slow down access to their feeds? And what happens when your server gets overloaded or you go out of business? The app stops working? Why are you trying to get *between* the people and their data?! Bad bad idea.
Are you building an RSS reader or a CDN (content distributation network). You should choose one. An RSS reader should just go out and request new RSS every so often. Most good RSS readers have a setting that lets the client allow when to do that.
Why would anyone use your application to slow down access to their feeds? And what happens when your server gets overloaded or you go out of business? The app stops working? Why are you trying to get *between* the people and their data?! Bad bad idea.
Thank you josh for your reply. but I think there is a little misunderstanding here and I have to explain my problem better. as I said in my previous post I know how an ordinary desktop RSS reader works. my focus is on finding a better way for retrieving new entries.
you know In the normal form we set our app to ping remote server for new entries. but I'm looking for a way to not ping server every minutes and instead make server to send update message to client app upon each update and there eliminate the need of pinging server. we have such thing like Comet technology or like Instant Messengers remote buddy notified when there was new message sent by his/her friend and it's not ping all friend list for new message. I hope you get my thought.
I doubt you are going to engineer a solution that's faster then just pinging the source server. Just from a practical perspective, how many people really complain about RSS being slow? Why not work on a real problem (and by that I mean one where the users say they have a problem they need solved)