[JDEV] Rich Text in Messages

[DJ Adams]

On Wed, Dec 20, 2000 at 02:04:18PM -0500, Stephen D. Williams wrote:
> I strongly disagree.  Presence should include capabilities.  The alternative

Well, I guess we have to agree to disagree. Presence is presence. Not
capabilities. :-)

> is very inefficient since essentially every user would have to query every

It is just as inefficient to have every capability of clients (and today we
have relatively simple clients - I can't imagine all the features we might
have in the future) sent with presence messages, not counting the filtering
out again of this info when not needed.

Do you propose the client version should be sent in the presence too? That
means we can do away with the jabber:iq:version ;-)

> other user and this might determine if they wanted to have a conversation in
> the first place.  Imagine that you only spoke Spanish (an alternate problem
> and good placeholder for a desired technical ability, like 'supports GSM
> audio'), when you enter a group chat or do a directory search, you're going to
> want to filter for other people who have a 'Spanish' capability.
> 
> A better example would be that you are looking for someone to participate in a
> multi-user game and need to know who else is also running that game. 
> Insisting on polling for this kind of thing makes the system unusable and
> unextendable.

These examples don't work in the current presence /subscription/ model, 
in that you won't get presence from strangers who might have 'Spanish',
for example, or new gamers who might be appropriate opponents.

This is not an easy debate, I know :-)

dj