Hi all,
I need some guidance on how I can build an AJAX/PHP chat application, sort of like an instant messaging thing like the one on Facebook. It doesn't have to be anything fancy as long as it works. I have some ideas as to how I can build it but I've never tried to do anything like this before so I'm a bit lost. I'm confident I can build the entire PHP side of things up until I have to use AJAX, then I'm stuck.
The main concern I have is the affect it will have on the server, lets say I have a Javascript timer to check for new messages sent at certain intervals, wouldn't that have a massive affect on the server? I can only think of using a timer to get new messages for each user, I can't come up with any other way to get it to work. I just don't want to kill the server with AJAX requests if that's even possible.
So really my question is, would it be okay to use a timer to get new messages of each user at certain intervals, or is there another way of doing it?
Hope this makes sense
Thanks,
Adam