Meteor chat app

by zquestz • 14 years ago

37 31 14 years ago

Having used Meteor for a few weeks, I'm always impressed with how much time it is saving me.

One of the unfortunate things about Meteor at the moment is there aren't many open projects to learn from. For others trying to gain insights to best practices through this projects, here are some suggestions I may offer:

Users.find({last_seen: {$lt: (now - 60 * 1000)}}).forEach(function (user) { Users.remove(user._id); });

-> Users.remove({ last_seen: { $lt: (now - 60 * 1000) } });

and

Messages.find({date: {$gt: new Date()}}).forEach(function (message) { Messages.update(message._id, {$set: {date: new Date()}}); });

-> Messages.update({date: {$gt: new Date()}}, { $set: {+new Date() }})

Excellent work otherwise though. I'd love to see more open source projects released with Meteor if anything for others to learn from!

zquestz12• 14 years ago

Thanks for the suggestions, just some quick hacking over the past two nights. I will update those queries. =)

shinta42• 14 years ago

A quick search through github, i found there are so many open projects out already, you just have to know how to search. for example, https://github.com/Maedi/CometHop https://github.com/jonathanKingston/britto https://github.com/chris-ramon/minitrello https://github.com/maeharin/dokoiru https://github.com/tomsoderlund/MathPlay https://github.com/philippkueng/rock-paper-scissors

azat_co2• 14 years ago

I wasn't able to see my messages. Something is broken?

zquestz12• 14 years ago

It auto deletes any messages that have a date greater than the server. Make sure your clock is set right. =)

azat_co2• 14 years ago

Hmm, strange. I'll check it.

wahnfrieden• 14 years ago

Maybe you should allow for a few seconds variance..?

user495982• 14 years ago

heres mine from a while ago: http://instachat.meteor.com/

source: https://github.com/spicytuna/InstaChat

you can create rooms like this: http://instachat.meteor.com/room/HackerNews

zquestz12• 14 years ago

I saw your app on the made with meteor site. You still upgrading it?

user495982• 14 years ago

Haven't made any commits in a while. Waiting for more features from meteor.

ukd12• 14 years ago

It worries me that security is still not a big part of this. I hope most people don't miss the fact that it's simple because it's insecure? Good luck to them solving it without ruining what's a nice idea.

Sample, in your console type:

Messages.remove({})

Users.remove({})

mibbitier2• 14 years ago

for(var i=0;i<100;i+++) {Users.insert({name: "bot00" + i, last_seen: new Date()})};

for(var i=0;i<20;i++) {Messages.insert({user: "testuser", text: "yo!", date: new Date()})};

Security stability and scalability are the hard parts.

ukd12• 14 years ago

Or, if you're bored and hate everyone:

Meteor.setInterval(function () { Users.remove({}); Messages.remove({}); }, 500);

cmelbye• 14 years ago

Eh, that issue is not really an issue. Server-side functions are actually a surprisingly elegant way of handling security. Basically, instead of calling Users.remove({}), .insert(), .update(), etc., you create functions on the server that are called from the client. That way, the server controls what you can and can't edit. The end result is still very simple, because you're just calling functions like user_login(), send_message(), etc. instead of operating on the database directly on the client-side.

drivebyacct22• 14 years ago

You mean like every other web app in existence ever?

arturadib• 14 years ago

According to the FAQ they're still working on a built-in user authentication.

If you have to implement a separate, server-side CRUD security check by hand, then I don't see why I would choose Meteor over say Rails or Express plus Backbone.

zquestz12• 14 years ago

For more details on meteor security and what they are doing to fix it. Check out https://github.com/meteor/meteor/wiki/Getting-Started-with-A...

level09• 14 years ago

is it possible to generate a non-hackable secret token on the client and validate it on the server ?

zquestz12• 14 years ago

Other way around. Server generates the token and passes it to the client on login.

zquestz12• 14 years ago

Just for a quick update. I have made a few commits to address the security problems people noted below. You can no longer reset any collections from the client, or spoof messages from a different user. If people still see issues in the code, you can let me know and I can patch those up too. =)

Meteor chat app

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