Le Crap

A learning project that combines

• chicago boss (erlang server side framework)
• ember.js (client side js)
• bootstrap / flat-ui (ui style)

The goal is to use advanced features of erlang to have a realtime messaging system (probably websockets) for chat

Install

Install Erlang: apt-get install -y erlang

Install Chicago Boss:

cd ..
wget http://www.chicagoboss.org/ChicagoBoss-0.8.6.tar.gz
tar -zxvf ChicagoBoss-0.8.6.tar.gz
cd ChicagoBoss-0.8.6
./rebar compile

Run our app:

cd ../lecrap
./rebar compile
./init-dev.sh

Visit http://localhost:8003/ in your browser

NGINX

If you want to put chicago boss behind nginx, you will need need a recent version (at least 1.3.13) that supports websockets.

server {
  server_name lechat.example.com;
  listen 80;

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:8003;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
  }
}

Resources

• http://eviltrout.com/2013/03/23/ember-without-data.html (ember without ember-data)
• http://www.evanmiller.org/chicago-boss-tutorial.pdf - pretty solid tutorial
• http://www.freemindsystems.com/blog/post/eunit-testing-with-erlang-and-chicago-boss - testing the boss

Issues

• the models know way to much about websockets... should publish to boss_mq
• add concept of users
• messages should be added in pending state on client after hitting return, then updated after sent
• timestamps for messages