[jdev] Re: The State of Our Code-bases

[Nolan Eakins]

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Justin Karneges wrote:
> 1) Would it be easier to sponsor rob to complete jabberd2 rather than
> sponsor
> a new project with new and/or possibly inexperienced developers?  I have a
> feeling that if someone wanted to make a Python server they would have
> done so already, and if they have not, then it would be due to time
> constraints
> (I'm thinking of Jacek, author of pyxmpp).  Unless we're flinging $$$
> around, I don't see the situation changing, and if we are, then we need to
> evaluate our options.

Someone can sponsor me. It'll keep me from having to find a job. :-)

I'm already thinking about putting some effort into one of the servers, most
likely jabberd 2, once I'm done with my current obligation of MUCing with
Psi. One of the things I want to do is make use of Jabber as message
oriented middleware to distribute data around. It's already got the
routing, but problems remain.

When I got my initial idea to use Jabber, I was expecting most of the Jabber
puzzle to be complete. After getting involved with the community, some
problems have been pointed out to me. As it stands I may have my work cut
out for me to have something that has the reliability for what I want to
use it for.
 
I did come across WPJabber which seems to be a fork of jabberd 1.4. That's a
good thing. I don't know if it's up to XMPP 1.0 or not, but I was glad to
see that someone took it up.

>> [Saint-Andre mentioning Python]
>> Python. Just compare the readability of this code with the old MSN-t one
>> :-). One can easily learn Python *and* start hacking on PyMSN-t in the
>> time required just to get an idea on how the old C transports work :-).
>> And don't forget that with Python (or, in fact, any other decent
>> framework or high-level language) you do not have problems with
>> exceptions or memory leaks, two things that make most C programs
>> unusable.

Python is very easy to learn. I went through its tutorial in about a day,
and its interactive shell helps a ton. Though being able to learn a
language quickly doesn't equate into wisdom which results into easy to read
and maintain code. Writing code is more than just writing code. You still
need to think things through and come up with a decent design too.

It doesn't take a chef to make spaghetti. 

Jumping into a foreign program also takes time. It would probably take the
same amount of time to figure out a Python program as a decent C or C++
program. Knowing how A connects to B which connects to C etc. is only half
of the battle to making changes.

Not to drench the end of this with gasoline. Yes, C is prone to memory leaks
and bugs from misuse. That's why they made C++. :-)

(though abstracting could solve some of those problems)

- - Nolan

- -- 
http://www.semanticgap.com/people/sneakin/
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