[JDEV] Client nicks

[jswink at softcom.net]

Jeremie Miller wrote:
> 
> > Well, I was perusing the client/server protocol, looking at this
> >  [proto example zappd]
> > The address 545212 at ICQ sticks out a bit.  In user at jabber.server.com,
> > the second part of the address is the internet address of a server,
> > while in 545212 at ICQ it's the name of a particular type of service
> > or transport.  I think this is a bad thing.
> 
> It's not, trust me :)
> 
> > Looking at Eliot Landrum's screenshots, you see a buddy's various
> > nicks all grouped together, which is a good thing.  But the way
> > the protocol's looking now, it seems like the client will only be
> > able to do this automatically for actual Jabber nicks.  How can
> > you associate 545212 at ICQ with a Jabber user?
> 
> I think this is a common mis-conception that is causing more than a few
> people some grief when trying to understand Jabber... I'll try to explain.
> 
> The id 23456723 at ICQ is NOT a Jabber user, they are an ICQ user, so you
> have an ICQ user on your roster.  ICQ users are not allowed to have
> multiple logins on one account with different nicknames, so you will
> *never* see sub-logins for this ID.
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the other mis-conception here is that
> you will be able to use other clients to log into Jabber, like ICQ or AIM.

Lemme have another go at it.

Jabber user A has a Jabber ID and also uses ICQ.
Jabber user B had Jabber user A in his buddy list.
When user A logs into ICQ, user B wants his Jabber client to know this.

User A -- ICQ client -- ICQ server -- Jabber ICQ transport -- 
  Jabber server -- Jabber Jabber transport -- Jabber client -- User B

As I understand the current setup, all you have to do is write
a proper ICQ transport to get this to work, BUT, user B's
contact list will have 1234567 at ICQ on their list _without_
any well-defined way of associating this with user A.

[User B's contact list]

  - User A      "Joe"           {offline}
  - User C      "Mike"          {online}
  [37 other entries for Mr. popular B]
  - 1234567 at ICQ "DeathKnight"   {online}

User B: "Hmm, DeathKnight was Joe, right?"

It seems a pity to resort to using <ext> tags to try to
store this info on the server, or force a client to store the
entire roster, to make something so basic work.

On the other hand, if Joe is allowed to associate a transport
with every nick, user B only has to select user A in their
list, bang out a message, and it'll head off to the ICQ
transport automatically (being the only one online, it has
the highest priority).


Joshua Swink
jswink at softcom.net