reqs

To that end, we present the Messaging App:

The Messaging App is a real-time event notification system, most simply
understood as a chat application.  To that end, it supports the following
functionality:

 o A client application (of which there can be more than one instance) and a
   single server.

 o For clients, there is no distinction between producers and consumers - every
   client can both send and receive messages.

 o Both the client and server support persistent connections (as opposed to a
   polling interface) for a near real time experience.

 o Peer-to-peer communications, thus some degree of authentication and
   addressing will be required.

 o The concept of groups/channels, allowing individuals to subscribe to a group
   and for messages sent to a group to be broadcast to individual clients

 o A REST API around the server services

The design of the Messaging App is completely up to you, and is just as
important as the functionality.  That said, we intend for this to be a smaller
project that should take no more than a day of your +time, and we understand
that you will not be able to do everything you would do for an actual
production-ready project.  As such, as part of your deliverable, please include
an explanation of your +approach to the problem, the general structure of your
code, and any additional work the project may need to be release ready.

You may choose any implementation language or technology you like, and can use
whatever third party libraries you wish.  For example, you may choose to write
the server in Node.js (one of our core +languages at CloudMine ;) or leverage
existing Apache technologies - the choice is entirely yours.  Similarly, the
clients can be written in anything from python to iOS.  Additionally, there is
no need +to support persistence via a backend data store - everything can
reside in local memory if you wish.

The project is meant to be a showcase of your areas of expertise as well as
your technical passions.  We hope you have fun, and we very much look forward
to learning what excites you about the art of +software engineering.