lambda.chat

Ginger

12:53

alright

@RadvylfPrograms you there?

Radvylf Programs

13:39

@Ginger I am now

Seggan

whats this

Ginger

14:49

@RadvylfPrograms niec

so, what do I need to do?

Radvylf Programs

There's a few options:

1. Your replit contacts my server, and basically uses it as a database

2. The users contact my server directly to read the transcripts

3. My server listens in to all of the chat rooms, and no modifications are made to lambda.chat itself

No. 3 is the least practical

Ginger

2. is not very secure

(bc private rooms)

so I think 1. is best

Radvylf Programs

Okay, sounds good.

So I think we can use a pretty simple API for this

Maybe JSON, an array, with the following commands: transcript (reads from a room), room (adds a room), post (adds a message to a transcript), modify (modify a message)

Ginger

but rooms can be deleted and stuff

Radvylf Programs

drop_room, drop

But wouldn't we want to keep the transcript anyway?

Ginger

14:56

mod deletion

Radvylf Programs

Ah, okay. So yeah, add drop_room and drop to that list

Will I store user IDs, or user names?

Can user names change?

Ginger

names can change, so store IDs

Radvylf Programs

Other than message ID, user ID, timestamp, and content, will I need to store anything else?

Ginger

hmmm

probably not

but I will note that I intend for messages to be numbered per-room

Radvylf Programs

Yeah, that's fine

What protocol? HTTP POST fine?

Ginger

15:02

yup

~~although socket.io does sound tempting~~

Radvylf Programs

Ooh, maybe a WS would be a good idea

But not socket.io, unless that does normal sockets too

Since socket.io's hella overkill for communication between two servers

Ginger

socket.io is a convenience layer on top of WS

but yea overkill

Radvylf Programs

More like a slow, laggy compatibility layer for people who want to have IE6 support and eat it too

Ginger

would a WS be more efficient? testing needed

Radvylf Programs

I mean, very slightly more efficient, but more just...convenient lol

Ginger

15:05

*laughs in requests*

Radvylf Programs

*cries in node*

The main advantage of a WS would be that it lets my server send transcript data to you asynchronously, which seems...totally useless lol

Ginger

¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯

I'm going to go with POST because Python does not have very good WS libraries

Radvylf Programs

15:22

Sounds good

Content-Type: application/json

We can do an array of operations, so that things can be cached and batched up

Sending a POST every few seconds if a room's active seems wasteful

Ginger

yaes

but then again that means that people wouldn't be able to do anything to a message for a little while

maybe I can find a better WS lib?

the issue with the one I normally use is that it can't do async receiving

I could use this one but I've never used asyncio before

Radvylf Programs

@Ginger Wait why?

Ginger

because it'll take some time for the message to be synchronised

but if I can figure out how to use WS then I would prefer to

because it just works better for this application

Radvylf Programs

@Ginger Well in theory, my server would just act as storage space for yours. All the synchronization would be after the fact

You'd just send the post and modify in the same batch if they occured in quick succession

Ginger

just a seccy

I could potentially use a separate thread...

Radvylf Programs

15:34

No no, no need for WS

Ginger

but like what do I do if someone sends a message and then immediately requests it? I won't have sent it to your server yet so it'll 404

Radvylf Programs

Well you wouldn't immediately forward it to my server, you'd check your cache on your end first

Ginger

bleuh right

Radvylf Programs

Just abstract it away with a get_message function that handles deciding if it's in the cache

Ginger

~~you mean getMessage~~

alrighty

what address should I use?

Radvylf Programs

15:37

https://rto.run/lambda.chat, I guess

Ginger

sounds gouda

Radvylf Programs

I can do any of radvylf.com, radvylfprograms.com, rto.run, or amidst.dev though if you'd prefer something else

Ginger

How will I authenticate? Obviously my server is the only one allowed to use this service

Radvylf Programs

You'll just include a password with every request.

Should we use some sort of fancy protocol to make it change with each request?

Ginger

30 mins ago, by Ginger

¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯

Radvylf Programs

15:40

Like sha_256(payload + password)

Actually yeah, let's do that

Ginger

right...

Radvylf Programs

That way if we accidentally leak stuff while debugging, it'll prevent the password from being public

Ginger

also, I'm going to encrypt all data sent to your server ~~so you can't snoop on my evil plans~~

Radvylf Programs

Sounds good. I'd format it as { "id": "[id]", "data": "[encrypted data]" } then

Since I'll be using a hashmap of ids to store things for efficiency purposes

Ginger

niec

Radvylf Programs

15:44

Go ahead and include all of the data, time stamps, user IDs, message content, whatever, in the data part

That way even the users who are in a private room couldn't be analyzed

Oh, you'd probably need a room key too

Since IDs are per-room

Ginger

yaes

wait, can you provide me with an example request? I'm a bit confused

Radvylf Programs

[
    {
        "op": "post",
        "room": 14,
        "id": 12,
        "data": "anvwDNU283=="
    },
    {
        "op": "modify",
        "room": 14,
        "id": 1,
        "data": "aj6/4+1==="
    }
]

The data can just be whatever format you want, it'll be stored unchanged. So base64 of encrypted data, a JSON object, whatever.

Ginger

okeay

keep in mind that I'm not using numbers for room ids

(again, private rooms)

Radvylf Programs

Oh, what are you using?

Ginger

an 8-character Base64 string

like a YouTube video id

Radvylf Programs

15:50

Ah, that shouldn't matter. base64 or base64url?

Ginger

url-safe

Radvylf Programs

Personally, I'm a huge fan of base64url and think ordinary base64 shouldn't exist in the first place

Actually, if data will be binary, represented with some sort of base64, could you let me know so I can use Buffers for more efficient storage?

If you're encrypting stuff, binary's pretty likely

Do you want me to add a find_room command to check if there's a room with that ID already?

Also, will I need a table to store information about rooms? Or will room names and access information be stored on your end

Ginger

I store all of that

nvm I'm gonna use base64 lol

@RadvylfPrograms What's the maximum number of tasks I should send at once?

Radvylf Programs

3.26 million

3.27 million and everything crashes

3.25 million it can handle easily

Ginger

uhh

okay then

Radvylf Programs

16:00

Realistically, I'd do ~24 at a time

Ginger

got it

Radvylf Programs

Maybe wait 4 seconds or so after every message after the 24th, and if no messages arrive during that time, send it

If that's complicated then just send after 24

Ginger

I was going to do send attempts every 3 or so seconds and empty the whole queue of events but that's probably better lmao

is it ok if it occasionally sends more than 24?

Radvylf Programs

Sure

As long as it's less than 3.27 million

Ginger

actually, I think the "send every 3 seconds" method is best

because when I restart the server any messages in the queue will be lost

Radvylf Programs

16:06

@Ginger That's way more often than needed

@Ginger Just have a sigint handler that sends the remaining stuff in the queue

Ginger

ok then

Radvylf Programs

You can still lose data with the 3s thing, just less consistently

You're only hiding the problem

Ginger

that is my speciality

Radvylf Programs

3

Ginger

yup

also, how did you make that so fast

Radvylf Programs

16:13

Touchscreen and a blank chrome canvas tab open already

Ginger

wow

@RadvylfPrograms I need to send you the starting passcode... somehow

maybe I could do the thing you did with pxeger?

Radvylf Programs

I'll just put a text input on my website

Just a sec

Romanp

Make a temp email and share it?

Ginger

okay then

Radvylf Programs

@RadvylfPrograms I won't be able to do any work on this 'til I'm home, btw

Ginger

16:24

so, what format does the key use?

Radvylf Programs

Just make it a string of bytes, maybe 16B

Ginger

I'm going to use sha256

it's binary data so I guess I'll POST it to ya

what's the address?

Radvylf Programs

Won't have it set up until I'm home, so four hours or so

Ginger

alrighty

internet having a bad day

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