[JDEV] Introduction

[Brian Gray]

Hey folks.

My name's Brian, I just signed on a few minutes ago and thought I'd
introduce myself.  I'm a programmer/analyst in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, working
at a sports-based web company.  For a little while now I've been leading a
team to create a distributed communications system to handle chat,
persistent message boards, web-based email, and other sundry
community-building tasks.  It's a big job, and it's planned to consume a
lot of engineering resources.

So I pitched the idea to my boss, and it's looking quite possible I'll be
able to reallocate my engineers to other projects and work on Jabber
full-time as a replacement for the system we've been developing.  Even if I
can't get the company to go for the idea of paying me to develop open
source code (it's a startup and has no policy one way or the other on the
issue), I'm sure I'll be participating in my free time.

Basically, I'm trying to get a feel for what's needed most at this
particular point in the product's life cycle.  I have pretty extensive
experience with socket protocols -- BSD, WinSock, OpenTransport -- and a
variety of operating system interfaces (POSIX, Mac Toolbox, Win32, BeOS).
It looks like most of the stuff with '+' next to it in the todo list is in
the protocol field.

Since I'm new here, I'm perfectly happy working on bug fixes to get the
server ready for primetime, or doing whatever is most needed.  I'd also be
interested in adding a project I don't seem to find on the site.  Does
anyone here have any experience developing for Macromedia Shockwave?  I'd
like to get a project going to create a Shockwave client.  Not only does it
execute a good deal faster than Java, but it's frighteningly easy to alter
the UI as one sees fit to make a fully customized user experience.  The
only drawback is that Shockwave has no capacity to open TCP sockets.  To
that extent, I can write a C++ plug-in that gives it that capability.  Does
anyone else think such an endeavor is worth the effort?

Anyway, it's nice to meet you all.  I look forward to working with you.

 -- Brian Gray