GMail is an example of 2 different applications clearly separated into
one user interface, and integrating on some fronts. I don't have a
problem with that. My problem is if you start creating one giant
client that does everything, where you soon end up with a user
interface that is only mediocre at all tasks, and very confusing.
I don't really agree. That's not like a program which does all and nothing,
with too different tasks. As I said, for me they are related features and
this can be done with a very simplistic and intuitive interface.
Of course, after this you have better developpers, better designers, and so
better programs than other.
I just spoke of gmail because this has some reputation currently and this
enables to do many things which are very close to what could be done with
Jabber, with the advantage that it is XMPP, so a decentralized network where
you would choose your provider, though sharing some common clients (light
web clients or heavy local ones).
An IM client wouldn't publish the capability of reading feeds, and as
such would not get notifications.
Ok for this, but currently do clients tell what are their features? I
thought it was only the server which does it. And so the idea would be that
when a client connects, it tells to the server "I can do this and this",
hence a pubsub message would stay on the server as long as no client
connects and tells it has this capacity? This is interesting.
I don't think anyone is doubting that XMPP is more than an IM
protocol. The question is whether you should build an XMPP client that
implements *everything* you can do with XMPP. My opinion is that this
leads to bad, uninspired applications. The best applications are
focused on their task, and do it extremely well.
I already gave my opinion above about this. I would just like to add
thoughts in order to give weight to what Pedro Melo and Fabio Forno already
said. XMPP has a specificity compared to what you suggest: it is a push
system! This is something which gives the pubsub system for notification
(for blog, website news, and so on) several very great advantages:
- realtime
- fabulous gain of bandwith: no need for a feed program anymore which
connects to your website several times a day. Here it is replaced by a
single connection by the website itself which will feed the node. And then
it is up to the XMPP server to dispatch the notification to all subscribers.
I remember some small blog which had to stop their RSS feeds because they
had a small personnal server which had been completely loaded up by people's
agregators trying to load news every 10 minutes. This could not happen with
xmpp pubsub.
This cannot be compared to current feed system because this work very
differently. This is not something you check regularly. This is just a
system where you are simply connected on the net without thinking of this
and then you get notified about things you like and you wanted to be
notified! The difference is that you don't need to take care anymore of
this. You don't have to run specifically a program for following news: they
come to you. For me this is another way of doing.
For my own I use a little feeds, but I don't like it so much. I don't like
to go and check my feed program.
Moreover even for IM features, I am not really fond of the current systems
of a IM dedicated program with this list window which stays always opened. I
think Jabber client can be so much more, and this passes through the step
"more integrated".
After this, let's imagine many other advantages. You could imagine that at
the opposite, you can publish from your Jabber client on your blog, by
simply publishing to the node with a publisher login (and this would push on
your blog bot which is a Jabber client).
And pubsub is not only notification. With this, you can imagine an
implementation of "Jabber mailing list" where every subscriber has also the
right to publish. So you just publish on the node and everyone receives
(this is not like a muc chatroom, because you don't have the presence).
And for all this, I don't want to have 10 different programs, because for me
it is the same thing: sending and receiving messages which matters (I
subscribed to them).
Your turn to speak. ;-)
Jehan
