Deprecate the socket.io library in favor of move to native client-side WebSocket interface.

[aaclayton]

We may be able to eliminate the client-side socket.io client in favor of native WebSocket integration.

This would require implementing a few bespoke features where we currently rely on Socket.io: https://socket.io/docs/v4/#features

[CodaBool]

I'm sure you're pretty versed on websockets but thought I'd post some relevant info. While websockets are commonly native now they would still lack two important features socket.io offers. These would need to be implemented personally:

• Auto reconnects (using heartbeats)
• packet buffering (packets are resent on re-connection).

They have some more detail on their landing page.

[aaclayton]

Yes, absolutely right. These features (and also especially acknowledgements) are key to our use case. It's possible we will deprioritize this (again) as we have for previous versions because making this change is not an urgent need and we have plenty of other things that require doing in V12.

[aaclayton]

Deprioritizing from V12.