kixeye 24 hour coding challenge: Write a socket server.

I wrote this from scratch in a night, using only ANSI-C and POSIX standard libraries.

the app: talk client & server

It's an extremely minimal talk/irc client. All messages are broadcast to all users.

example session

console 1

$ ./server

console 2

$ ./client -n luser1
>>> --=[ luser2 signed on ]=--
sup y'all
>>> --=[ luser2 signed off ]=--

console 3

$ ./client -n luser2
>>> luser1: sup y'all
^C

What I would do if I had more time

• Better message format. Messages with payloads that are more complicated than a string are difficult to create.
• Async send(). Right now it's doing a blocking send and assuming that all data gets written. Fixing this would mean storing more state about the outgoing message, which is done in a completely ad-hock and hacky way for the reads.
• Better client-side UI. I'd like to have a std scrolling chat log and fixed-position input. Also, colors.
• signal handling and graceful shutdown.
• better error handling in general.

What features I would add if I had weeks

• I'd start over and write it with proven event, console, and data structure libraries.
• more commands: direct message, moderation.
• plug-in architecture for adding commands.