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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-09T10:13:12+00:00

This may be sort of a newb-ish question. I know you can do this

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This may be sort of a newb-ish question. I know you can do this kind of thing in Node.js pretty easily, but I don’t know what it’s called and haven’t had much luck with Google.

Basically, I am trying to build a simple tic-tac-toe server with Ruby on Rails. Players connect to each other, and moves are recorded and results processed live. If it was just having the user send messages to the server, that would be easily done with AJAX. However, I want to have the client wait and listen for the server to point out that the other player has made a move, and then automatically respond to that. I could do this by pinging the server with AJAX constantly, but there must be a better way. I feel like I’m missing some big technology that I haven’t found yet just because I’m not entirely sure how to describe it or what it would be called.

Would I want to have the client connect directly to the server and maintain a live connection? If so, how would I do that? If not, what is the better way to do this? How do online games and stock tickers and streaming services provide their content to the client, and what tools does Rails give me to do something similar?

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  1. Editorial Team

    Check eventmachine in ruby

    some links

    https://github.com/eventmachine/eventmachine/wiki

    http://20bits.com/article/an-eventmachine-tutorial

    http://rubysource.com/introduction-to-event-machine

    There is a faye and private_pub gem which makes things simpler .

    There are railcasts available.

    http://railscasts.com/episodes/260-messaging-with-faye

    http://railscasts.com/episodes/316-private-pub

    I recommend trying private_pub which is built on top on faye which uses eventmachine which can solve most of your questions

    the pub/sub model helps to the client to subscribe to its channel
    , so you can push updated to the channel which will be eventually passed to the client.

    Your question and my answers

    Q. Would I want to have the client connect directly to the server and maintain a live connection? If so, how would I do that?

    A. You can use private_pub or faye to establish long connections and push data
    also Check our later for pusher.com they provide services on commercial basis.

    Q.How do online games and stock tickers and streaming services provide their content to the client, and what tools does Rails give me to do something similar?

    A. AFAIK everyone uses some sort of push technology. pub/sub model. ruby has some gems available for such requirements, faye private_pub some of them..

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