huhtenberg: I believe AsymetricCom was referring to being able to compile an executable using perlcc. He wasn't referring to the networking aspects of it (WebSockets have not been around 10 years).

huhtenberg: You're right. It's very similar to inetd - that's why the first sentence in the websocketd description is "Like inetd, but for WebSockets".

The thing it adds on top of inetd is it takes care of the protocol so the underlying app doesn't need to. Namely HTTP WebSocket handshaking and data framing.