On Fri, Sep 21, 2001 at 07:24:09AM +0200, Philip Newton wrote:
>[Disclaimer: I am not a PAUSE admin. Feel free to ignore this message.]
I think it's important to clear up misunderstandings, so I'm
not going to ignore it :-)
> Shouldn't this belong in the Net:: namespace, alongside such modules as
> Net::AOLIM, Net::AIM, Net::ICQ, and Net::IRC?
Not really. Jabber is not just an IM or chat system. Jabber is
a development architecture and platform for building distributed
services, just as e.g. Apache is a development architecture and
platform for building services and so on. Many of the developments
I and other people are doing with Jabber have nothing to do with
Instant Messaging. Jabber doesn't really belong in this area.
> And there's also an existing Net::Jabber::* namespace hierarchy, all (as
> far as I can see) from R/RE/REATMON/Net-Jabber-1.002[12].tar.gz.
> Shouldn't your modules go beneath there somewhere? I note you said:
>
> > Jabber::Connection is a different approach to programming
> > with Jabber, in that it allows you do to anything, and
> > doesn't attempt to provide "high-level" mechanisms that
> > are found in Net::Jabber.
>
> Still, I don't think opening up a new top-level Jabber:: namespace will
> go over well. I don't know enough about the subject to say where your
> modules might best be kept, though I would have guessed under Net::
> somewhere, since they seem to deal with net protocols, broadly speaking.
Again, Jabber, amongst other things, embodies protocols, as for example
Apache embodies HTTP. But it is a lot more than that. The problem is
that people have a perception that it is just a protocol or just an
IM solution. Placing the modules under Net:: would only further that
misunderstanding.
Just as Apache is important enough to warrant it's own top level,
so is Jabber.
> Net::Jabber::LL or ::LowLevel, perhaps?
This doesn't really fit, I'm afraid.
There are other modules in the pipeline for Jabber in the
Jabber:: namespace, for example Piers will be bringing on
Jabber::JAX::Component module soon.[1] And there will be
Jabber::JUDO::Element and Jabber::JAX::Packet too. None of them
related to a *protocol*, and none of them related to IM or chat.
There's increasing interest in Jabber as a solution to many things,
and these modules provide many different types of mechanisms for
leveraging Jabber's capabilities.
Other modules that I have already written and will be submitting
include Jabber::RPC (to support the official marriage of Jabber
and XML-RPC: Jabber-RPC) and Jabber::RPC::HTTPgate - a bridge
between traditional (HTTP-based) XML-RPC and Jabber-RPC.
Furthermore, there will doubtless be modules related to Jabber as
a commercial product emerging too.
It's important to get this right early, rather than when it's
too late. Putting the Jabber work under Net:: does a disservice
to both Jabber _and_ Net::.
Kind regards
dj
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