[jdev] parsing xml (xmpp) with ruby

[Remko Tronçon]

> and then do all this mumbo jumbo in Ruby, it's
> going to cost me in terms of performance pretty badly.

I guess that's one of the prices you pay for using ruby. And you'll
probably pay more ;-) If it really hurts you (which you'll only be
able to tell when your server runs on a decent load), maybe you could
write an XMPP parser in C that hands you full XML elements only. But I
would suggest you do the rest of your server first, I don't think
it'll be your biggest performance problem ;-)

> My question is this: how often could this happen, TODAY?

It happens a lot I would say, especially if you're on slow (GPRS)
connections. I don't think it's acceptable to release any server
software that makes your assumption.

> the client is sending half a stanza at a time over TCP. I think that's
> the client's problem.

Why is it a client's problem? The client can't do anything about a
slow TCP connection, the server on the other hand can remidy the
problem.

> gets booted and has to reconnect. I don't know if this possibility is
> worth costing all that performance.

Well, I guess it depends on what type of person you are, but I don't
know of any respectable software project that trades correctness for
speed. Not even mentioning that it's completely against XMPP
philosophy to put burdens on clients.

Personally, I don't think anybody will be willing to run your server
software once they know it doesn't work by design. Just my 2 cents.

cheers,
Remko