Paul Johnson wrote:
> The topology is identical, and how it works (servers being clients of other
> servers to deliver between sites, end users connecting to their local server)
> is identical to SMTP. The only real differences between SMTP and XMPP is
> XMPP uses XML and gets the job done in near-realtime whereas SMTP can take up
> to 4 days.
So? Doesn't change the fact that you threw up a strawman. But hey, you
want to talk topology let's talk about why SMTP is a prime example of why
jabber's model of multi-network support sucks. I remember the good ol' days
of interfacing Sendmail to gateway for multiple networks. It never worked as
well as using clients designed to work with the networks natively. The idea
was tried then and failed. The fact that the world migrated largely to one
standard, and one that can be argued that is severely flawed (not to mention
structurally weak) is immaterial to the discussion of what is defined as
"doing one thing and one thing only well".
Besides, the ultimate irony is that unlike your short-term predictions I
pretty much nailed it when ICQ first came out. I took one look at this
wizz-bang trend and said to my co-workers at the time "What, it's just a cheap
IRC knock-off." Look where Jabber, at least, is going. A network of servers
talking to clients so that people can either pass individual messages or join
chat groups to other individuals. It's freakin' IRC in a different protocol.
The only significant change is the interface. We could have saved countless
hours of programmer time and money by sticking with a tried and true standard,
thanks.
Of course it isn't the first time we've seen effort wasted replicating
what we already have. How much wasted time has gone into all the problems
faced with HTTP file transfers that were solved decades ago with good ol' FTP.
--
Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream?
PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do...
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