[JDEV] Annotating user's presence with extra information

[Dave]

I'd suggest the same, if the nature of the information being conveyed
wasn't presence-type info.  In our current Jabber system, the presence
element appears to me to be the only natural place to put the info in
question (just like the xmms info that Gabber puts in there - presumably
for the same reason).  Location is an atribute of your existance - i.e.,
an attribute of your presence; sending a message containing an attribute
of your presence rather than simply putting that attribute directly into
your presence means that you have to reimplement everything the Jabber
server already does to broadcast presence packets as needed.

Obviously, my "real" vote would go for pub/sub, because of the beauty with
which it treats _all_ packets: "standard" messages, presence messages,
presence attribute messages, file chunks, PASS requests, etc.  What we've
discovered in pub/sub is what recording studio operators have used for
years (well, used to use, until all the newfangled electronics took it
over) - connecting an input device to a "port" on a mediating device,
and then connecting an output device to the corresponding output port.
It's an amazing idea, because it is essentially a generalization of all
packet-based communication.  The primary advantage of having an IM system
based solely on pub/sub is flexibility, and another rather neat advantage
is simplicity in the server, since the server becomes nothing more
than that "mediating device" - truly an XML router in the purest sense.
(As you can tell, I'm extremely excited about pub/sub.  I'll try not to
waste any more of your time, though, unless you really want me to. . .)

Cheers,
Dave Cohen <dave at dave.tj>


Verizon wrote:
> 
> I'm just lurking here but thought I might contribute.  I think it is
> important to keep the base Jabber protocol lean and clean.  Think of it as
> transport and delivery with presence and extend it however you need with
> custom messages wrapped into the message element.  Have your specialized
> client do whatever it wants within that space.  You might simply define a
> special message with a subject of LOCATION and the specifics packed into the
> message element that gets sent to whoever needs to know. Nothing else gets
> unduly burdened and your need gets met.
> 
> Dan
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Henry Minsky" <hqm at ai.mit.edu>
> To: <jdev at jabber.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 12:17 PM
> Subject: [JDEV] Annotating user's presence with extra information
> 
> 
> >
> > I am working on a project where we have a server that is tracking users'
> > locations
> > via various technologies, and recording them in a realtime database.
> >
> > I would like to be able to annotate each jabber user on the server with
> > some information about their physical location. This information would
> most
> > likely be
> > retrieved in the presence information for each user, although might there
> > be some better place to put it, such as a new separate iq query?
> >
> > Note that the clients themselves do not necessarily know their own
> locations,
> > that information is derived on the server, so I need my "location server"
> to
> > somehow inject the location information for each user into the jabber
> > server, where it can be accessed by custom clients, or perhaps also
> stuffed
> > into the english-readable status strings, for backward compatibility with
> > existing
> > clients.
> >
> > Anyone else working on something like this?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Henry Minsky
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > jdev at jabber.org
> > http://mailman.jabber.org/listinfo/jdev
> 
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