Extreme Server Side Rendering
SMRTR summary
A developer built a fully functional Flappy Bird clone that runs entirely without front-end JavaScript, and it somehow works. The trick is called Extreme Server Side Rendering, or XSSR, a technique that keeps an HTTP connection open indefinitely, streaming a continuous trickle of CSS updates to the browser at 60 frames per second. The physics engine runs on the server. The score updates on the server. Even user clicks are handled through a hidden iframe workaround, no JavaScript required.
The performance numbers are surprisingly solid. A single server core can handle around 500 simultaneous games, and bandwidth runs about 20 kilobytes per second, far less than loading a typical JavaScript application.
The catch is latency. Every click requires a round trip to the server, which lives in Atlantic Canada. Players nearby found it smooth. Players across the world found it unplayable.
There was also an unexpected casualty. When the developer shared the demo on the Fediverse, the indefinite open connections crashed Pleroma servers repeatedly. It turned out to be an actual denial-of-service vulnerability, which was quietly patched.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to Daily.dev.
Read the original article