[JDEV] my interest -- a few questions

[Thomas Charron]

> From: owner-jdev at jabber.org [mailto:owner-jdev at jabber.org]On Behalf Of
> c. chris erway
> Subject: [JDEV] my interest -- a few questions

> hi.  yesterday i found the jabber.org site and i've been excited about the
> whole idea since then.  i think i'd like to help out with a lot
> of stuff -- i'm
> a perl junkie, however.  i saw the perl code included in the
> developer's distro
> and i'd like to contribute some.

	Welcome!  Personally, I'm about ready to send Jer a copy of the Perl
transport I've been workingon that does a better job of showing using
XML::Parser in an example..

> i've only had an hour or so to read the docs, but in thinking about the
> architecture i've had a few questions:

	Well, bear in mind that the docs are not all that great (No offence, guys).
Actually, I wouldn't say they're not that great, but merely need to be
expanded alot more, at least on the development side.. ;-P

> a] it seems like a user can't switch between jabber servers.  i
> wasn't sure how
> that would work -- if a user's favorite jabber server was down,
> would he be
> able to switch to a different one?  if all his info/config/etc is
> stored on
> that server, it would be hard to get that info to a different
> server if the one
> he usually uses is down.  or maybe you have been talking about
> that on this
> list?

	I was thinking of this a while back myself..  I was thinking that perhaps
eventually we'd be able to have a 'trusted host' for hosts that would allow
several hosts transports could validate for each other.  This would be nice,
but we actually have to get validating done first..  ;-P

> b] can modules / transports be written in perl?  i'd love to help
> out, and perl
> seems like a great language for writing socket transports, etc.
> there are a
> ton of perl modules that do everything -- pgp, xml parsing, etc.

	Yes..  I can send you a copy of the ugly transport I have right now, but
please, PWEASE don't hold the uglyness against me.. ;-P

> c] if you want to use a, say, jabber--> AIM transport, would that
> be dependent
> on your jabber server having that transport?  or, if it wasn't on
> your server,
> could the message be forwarded to a different server that had
> that transport
> installed?

	Not, becouse the transport would register the AOL ID to a jabber ID, so any
jabber client could connect to any AOL transport.  The transport does all
the work.  I'm guessing we may want to allow a transport to ONLY accept
certain hosts, but that's another flavor banana..

> d] uin's / id's / searching -- this might seem too simplistic,
> but, basically,
> how's the "search for a user" work?  the jabber distribution
> model seems to
> imply that no one server can know where every other jabber server
> is -- thus
> would there have to be a central jabber "directory server" that
> every jabber
> server would have to have a special module to connect to?

	I have't the foggiest.  A transport COULD be used for this, and users could
'register' themselves with the transport, and allow users to search the
transports database.  Actually, you could allow registeration with 'groups',
so you could actually search for 'show me a list of users in New Hampshire
that are members of the 'Gardening' group'.

> that's all i can think of right now.  i'm really interested in
> this project --
> sorry if you've already heard these questions over and over again from new
> entrants (put up a FAQ for new developers!).

	Heck, we still have to put up decent DOCS for new developers.. ;-P
Actually, I can make a FAQ really easy..

Jabber FAQ:

Q: <Any>

A: Join the mailing list..

 ;-P

--
Thomas Charron
United Parcel Service
Northeast Region
"Moving at the speed of a T3 Trunk Line!"